Supervising bees wasn’t much fun this summer. It rained a lot and I don’t enjoy sitting on a bee-hive roof in the rain. Besides that there isn’t much to see; bees don’t come out in the rain (not if they can help it). They sit indoors and eat honey.
Mr B checked the main hive late in the Spring. They had lot of honey. Mr B checked all the hives last week and the bees in the main hive have eaten all their honey. They also appear to have lost their queen and the colony is dwindling away. He would have been upset about that last year, but seems a bit more philosophical about it this year – ‘that’s nature’ he said, ‘the weak ones get weeded out’. Their new queen must have been a very weak one. (They should have kept their old one, shouldn’t they?)
It probably helps that the three new hives of bees that split off from the old one are all thriving. They all have a bit of honey, but not enough to see them through the winter. Mr B will feed them in the Autumn to make sure they have enough and are really strong next Spring.
So no honey this year. It looks like I will have to go busking to build up my catfood fund – that or starve. I started out by practising on the neighbours at the allotment. They seemed to be very receptive to my act.*
Speaking of ‘starve’, I had to go and get my own carry-outs on Wednesday. Mr B and F had both been out sailing (bit strange in the middle of the week, but there you have it). F got home first but was very slow getting my food bowl topped up so I stomped off in disgust and got my own ‘carry-out’ mouse. When Mr B arrived he had his daughter with him so I showed them what I have to resort to when he is away mid-week. You just can’t get the staff these days….
*[Secretary note: Tigger was caught ‘smooching’ with the allotment neighbours. He will deny it was smooching but he kept looking over to check that F and Mr B were watching, and even went into roll-over-and-show-off-his-tummy mode. Tart.)
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