Thanks and Happbee Birthday....

Thank you for all your lovely comments on my last blog post, it is so nice to know I am not alone in needing space sometimes.  I have started digging in the garden in preparation for a hobbit house - well I can dream can't I :-)  Oohh just think how cosy it would be ....

This week seems to have been better, I went to work on Sunday which helps I think as it gives me some space to be me.  It was rather a sad day in many ways at work with death all around me (I work in a hospital) but also nice in a way that I could help just a tiny bit by listening to peoples worries and be there to hold a hand or two (the power of holding someones hand is amazing - it always surprises me just how much comfort someone can get from that simple human gesture).

Well back to this blog post, went off an a tangent then :-)  Mr Sweetpea was a whole 40 years old the other weekend so I took Sunday off work (hence my need for space lol).  We went out to Ely to potter around as a family which was lovely.  We had wanted to go to Spain but at £2000+ for last min tickets that idea went out of the window.

I made him a belated birthday cake due to a silly cold I had.  He wanted a bee cake to go with his new hobby of beekeeping.  Can you see middle Sweetpeas Queen Bee on the right ?  It was fun to make if not a little stressful with the eldest Sweetpea deciding to throw freezing cold water over the girls in the bath whilst I ran down to pop a couple of the flowers I had cut on to the cake.  Yes I was cutting icing flowers outside the bathroom so I could keep an eye on them in the bath, I left them for about 30 seconds and it all kicked off - Mr Sweetpea was on lates at work :-(

Here are the bees, I thought you may like an update on them.  In the winter you have to give them sugar water to try and keep the hive numbers up as there is not much nectar and pollen around in the garden.

Mr Sweetpea then put a hive top feeder on so they could stay in the warm hive and feed in there.  This meant going in to the hive .......  eeekkk.  He got his kit on and got the smoker ready .....

When it was smoking enough he went to the hive .....

He then puffed the hive with smoke and stood back for a while.  He learnt a valuable lesson from last time he went in to the hive - slow and steady wins the race :-)  You have to smoke the hive and leave it for a few minutes, re smoke and do that until they all calm down.  The reason for this is that if they get smoked they assume there is a forest fire, they rush in to the hive to suck all their honey up and then they get a sugar rush which makes them dozy.  I always thought it was the smoke creating a lack of oxygen that did it but you learn something new every day !

He then went in and took the current lid off and replaced it with a feeder lid.  We knew the hive numbers had grown but look what they had created on the lid - isn't it wonderful.

So pretty to look at!  We have yet to open it up for its honey :-)  Some of the bees have already died away due to the cold weather, this is quite normal but still rather sad seeing them dead in front of the hive :-(  I hope the winter isn't too harsh for them.

Thanks for reading my ramblings, sorry they have been rather moany of late - parenthood is hard sometimes isn't it.  I know where I am with babies, I find them so easy but this hormonal time the kids are going through is a whole new ball game :-s

Take care
Zoe
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