Sunny Days

Tuesday was the first real sunny Spring day that we’ve had for a while and temperatures just managed to touch 13ºC. I was working from home as I had arranged to stay in for a delivery. The delivery was originally scheduled for last Wednesday, but as Tuesday was the first day I could be in to sign the paperwork it was re-scheduled.

I started the day with a nice sunny walk around the dunes and then got down to work. I got loads done before my 10am meeting with a client to whom I was providing some computer tuition. By Midday though I’d finished with that and the sun was shining. I thought I’d check with the people I was expecting the delivery from to get an ETA – surprise surprise, as seems to always be the case, someone somewhere had messed up again and it wasn’t coming at all today!

I of course sent off a few stroppy emails, but it did at least mean I could get out and enjoy the sunshine rather than waiting in for a delivery that wasn’t going to arrive.

Hive Reconfigurations

The first thing I did was do a hive inspection. The was the first inspection of the year on the hive at the bottom of our garden. All was looking good. There were

  • bees – always a good start
  • eggs – which shows that a queen is present and laying
  • larvae
  • sealed brood – which means more bees on the way soon
  • pollen – food for the baby bees
  • honey – food for the workers

All in all that’s a pretty good show. There were fewer bees than I had expected having seen the activity from the hive lately, but that could just have been because they were all out foraging. There was certainly plenty of pollen being brought back to the hive.

I swapped a few things around as they had been on a strange configuration over the winter. Above the mesh floor there was a super full of empty frames which we had put there to help keep the draights down in the main brood chamber. The brood box was above this and then another super above that. I removed the bottom super and put a queen excluder in between the brood box and the top super and then closed them up and left them to it. I didn’t actually see the queen so I’m not sure if she’s in the brood box (where we want her) or in the super, but we should be able to work that out on the next inspection and move her if necessary.

I did wear my GoPro and thought I was filming the whole inspection so that I could share it here but it turned out that I had it on photo mode so only took a single ‘rubbish’ photo (mainly of my finger!) as I started the camera.

Bee Inspection

Bee Inspection

Riding in the Hills

It was then time for some lunch and as the sun was shining, my bike looked lonely and the hills were calling I headed out for a ride in the hills. It was a nice easy ride, into Borth, through Bow Street and into Penrhyncoch and then up the long climb to Pendam with the sun shining on my back. I then took the gorgeous mountain road to Ponterwyd. There really is nothing better than riding along here in the sunshine. The scenery is stunning, it’s quiet and the road itself is great fun on a bike. Perfection.

From Ponterwyd I headed into Devils Bridge and then onto Pontrhydygroes before taking the road up through New Row to Abermagwr, then into Trawsgoed and out along the road to Llanilar and then headed back into Aberystwyth where I met Anna and Morgan. Quite a nice ride for a Tuesday afternoon.

Morgan was playing in a concert later that evening so he headed off to a practise session whilst Anna and I had dinner and then we settled down to watch the concert.

Not a bad day and certainly better than waiting in for a delivery.

1 Response

  1. Avatar forComment Author Mum says:

    Very true, but probably means you have to wait in another day.x

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Alan Cole

Alan is a Freelance Website Designer, Sports & Exercise Science Lab Technician and full time Dad & husband with far too many hobbies: Triathlete, Swimming, Cycling, Running, MTBing, Surfing, Windsurfing, SUPing, Gardening, Photography.... The list goes on.

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