A couple of days ago we inspected our bee colony for the first time this year. They were a tiny colony going into winter, and we’ve dipped below -10C a few times, so we were somewhat concerned that they might not make it. But whenever the sun has put in an appearance in the last few weeks they have been flying and hoovering up West Oxfordshire’s pollen supplies.
It was with some trepidation that we popped the lid off the hive, but it was great to see them all beavering away, we spotted the Queen (our mail-order bride from last year) and decent amounts of brood, pollen and honey stores. We took out a couple of frames of honey (to give the Queen more room to lay brood) and added a super on top to give the colony plenty of real estate to store honey (which we intend to plunder later in the year).
We’ve bought the frames of honey home and they are sitting in the kitchen, it’s impossible to walk past them without sticking your finger in and scooping up a dollop of honey, totally addictive.
Mmmm ..... honey
Sunday was glorious, we (Witney RFC) played Oxford Harlequins in the morning – I think all the teams that travelled did pretty well against tough opposition. The U7’s won 1 and lost 1. When the team played well, they played really well, Max scored a couple of tries and made some fearless tackles. Felix, who is probably the youngest in the U6’s, and is still finding his way a bit won Player of the Week.
Would you trust this face?