HIVE I GOT NEWS FOR YOU

..One award and two Queens

REGAL RED: Our magnificent Buckfast Queen Bee

 I AM buzzing with excitement today as me and my honey (a new, affectionate term for he-who-should-be-obeyed-but-rarely-is) have just become Basic Bee Masters after a gruelling outdoor test in the midday sun with an examiner from the Scottish Bee Keepers Association.
 Not only that, but while showing off our prowess as competent beekeepers (thank goodness he didn't see our antics last night) we finally discovered the two elusive queen bees who have caused so many sleepless nights of late.
 As regular followers know, we've had a frightful, nail-biting time with a swarm from Ayr. We spent the first two weeks wondering if the hive was queenless, then thought the queen could be a virgin who needed to be mated before embarking on her egg-laying process. Three weeks later and still no eggs we even thought a hungry bird may have made off with the Queen during her mating flight and then we had the nightmare scenario of no queen and a total breakdown of the bee society which was installed last month in our National Hive.
 Well as we went through our routine in front of the examiner my other half could barely contain himself with excitement when he spotted the queen at long
last.  There she was with a tell-tale yellow dot stuck on her back, no doubt, placed by the previous owner before she headed off with her swarm. Normally the colour gives away the year the queen's reign began but our examiner cautioned that some beekeepers simply use yellow because it's a bright colour and it might not necessarily mean she emerged from her queen cell last year (2012 queens should be marked yellow).
 Goodness only knows where she's been hiding but there she was in all her glory being waited on hand and foot by her loyal workers. Our examiner reckons she's an Italian bee because of her colony's light colouring and the almost manic, non-stop activity inside the hive complimented by her such good-natured subjects.
 After inspecting the frames we then went indoors for an oral exam where we were put through our paces individually. After the nerve-wracking experience we were told then and there that we had passed the rigorous SBKA test with more or less the same points - sadly not enough for a distinction but a good, credible pass rate nevertheless. After advising us to return to the National Hive for a few quick maintenance jobs which needed to be carried out he was gone. Feeling thoroughly empowered we returned to our apiary and bouyed by our success decided to sneak a peek inside our Warré hive and check on the small colony which arrived a couple of weeks back.

BREAD & HONEY: A simple but perfect pleasure to cap a brilliant day

 It was then that I spotted our magnificent Buckfast Queen Bee pictured above - she's the one with the elongated body and is sporting a red dot to signify her birth in 2013.
 Back home for a celebratory tea I made hubby his favourite Italian bread and he produced some wicked honey comb he'd snapped off from one of the frames in the National. If you remember I'd put in the wrong sized frames and since they were too small for the brood chamber the bees had carried on making their own honeycomb. I can tell you the honey was delicious and had a very distinctive taste probably drawn from the nectar of three giant lime trees nearby.
 Homemade bread, honey from our first hive and official acknowledgment  that we can now call ourselves Basic Bee Masters has made our day - that and the sighting of the two queens. All this on the eve of Ramadan which is considered by we Muslims to be the most sacred month in the Islamic calendar.
 So to all Soho2Silo readers I say: Ramadan Kareem and to those of other faiths and no faiths I hope this blessed month starts off as well as mine.