Oh Bee-have!

I took receipt of my first bee hive just after my last blog post. My friend arrived after dark and we got suited up for the job. Unfortunately my friend didn't tell me that she had blocked the entrance to the hive with a rag and upon pulling the hive out of the car, I pulled away what I thought was snagging the hive and was immediately filled with horror as hundreds of bees swarmed out of the entrance and all over me! My friend forced the rag back in - killing several bees - further aggravating them in the process before we made a hurried attempt to carry the hive down to our house. This would only be relatively painful - we were being stung through our suits and both had a few bees inside our suits - but our house is down a flight of stairs and it was pitch black and we had to walk down our dark garden which also has several steps... It took a few painful minutes and we needed a mid-way stop to wipe the large number of bees of us both, but we succeeded in having a quite immense adrenalin rush, which gave me genuine flash-backs to my 3 bungy jumps in Queenstown nearly 10 years ago!

Fortunately the stings are much less painful than I remember from being stung at Grandpa Whitaker's over 20 years ago. Two days on and some of them are itchy, but fortunately I'm not allergic! They have settled down a lot and I can walk all around them now without a suit or smoke - it will be a few more days until I go in for an inspection though!

I have got back from work the past 2 days and sat and watched them take off and land for some time - quite mesmerising! We can watch them from inside the house or the balcony and fortunately Bobby being White, the bees leave him alone! Not a bad set-up is it?!:

I have another box of supers to put on top next week - to be filled with delicious honey. The hive has come in time to get quite a harvest this summer - just in time for our parents to enjoy this April!



Bernie is still doing really well, despite getting frustrated with the occasional boughts of tiredness. She is out learning how to make various cheeses this evening so its hardly slowing her down! We were both thrilled to feel the baby kicking / moving last night. I thought it was last night's Pad Thai playing havoc, but put my hand on her belly and quickly felt several clear movements inside! We listened to the heart beat too when the mid-wife visited us this afternoon - we are desperate for the scan on Nov 25th!

Love to you all,
C&B x x