happy holidays

We are almost on holiday.  The house is clean and quite tidy in places, my suitcase is mostly packed, and I extracted the six supers of honey that have been sitting in a pile in the study for several days.  They weren't doing any harm, but we've had a bit of bother over the past thirty-six hours with bees finding their way into a super I'd put down in the garage after extraction.  Spinning the frames in my hand cranked centrifuge never gets them completely clean, indeed, no sort of mechanical extraction does.  Some beekeepers put the supers back on the beehives after harvesting the honey, to let the bees clear out the last scraps.  I didn't, because by then I'd started feeding sugar syrup and I didn't want them storing it upstairs.  And because I am an idle beekeeper, or efficient depending on how you look at it, and I didn't feel like pushing the wheelbarrow up and down the meadow and disturbing the bees to put supers on the hives and then take them off again.

I often have the garage door open, and the bees normally ignore the pile of equipment, but yesterday one of us brushed against a stack of supers and dislodged the square of cardboard covering the top one.  A bee must have found its way in, and is the way of bees gone back to the hive to spread the news about the latest food source.  Soon there were a lot of bees, and nothing to be done about it except wait until it was dark for most of them to leave then shut the garage door and cover the pile of supers more securely.  I thought that if a bee somehow found its way into the pile of the boxes in the study, the housesitter would be dealing not just with a lot of bees, but with a veritable Hitchcockian blizzard of them.  Safer and tidier to clear the supers away before tomorrow.

They were back this morning, buzzing around the outside of the garage door as they searched for the bonanza which had been there yesterday.  There were fewer by lunchtime, and by dint of my standing by to open the door and then quickly close it again before too many bees could get in, the Systems Administrator managed to get the lawn tractor out.  Some did get in anyway, but a couple of hours later they'd all gone.  When the door is shut a crack of light shows along the bottom at one end, and I think the bees must head for the light and crawl out.  Just as long as they don't learn to crawl in we'll be fine.

As is my way on holiday, I'll blog about the sights when I have time, which may not be every day. Burglars, do not be misled.  The faithful Mr and Mrs Smith will be here and at home more of the time than we are.  I thought it was very sporting of him to agree to come again, since last year one of the cats dropped dead on his watch.  I have written them a list of instructions, including the name and phone number of a couple of beekeepers, and the advice that if bees do get into the garage he should ignore them until they go away again.  Though I suppose in that case he might have to go out and buy some more chicken food.