How Many Beekeepers

Does it take to fix a cock-up. Last week, one or two beekeepers treated this colony with a product called Apivar; it consists of a plastic strip impregnated with a miticide call amritaz, but they failed to reassemble the hive correctly. Unfortunately, the bees took a dislike to the odour and had started dragging the strip to an inappropriate part of the hive, so this motley crew are repairing the damage. This is a teaching apiary so no blame is attached and there are no retributions; it’s put down to experience and it’s how we all learn. It has to be said that they handled the bees competently as I was standing in the middle of the apiary watching and photographing without a suit on and without being pestered by bees; five minutes after they’d finished, I was able to go up to the hives to help check the sample trays that fit under the open mesh floors to monitor the dead mites.
 
With the work finished, we reconvened in the abbey for a talk on further education, the powers that be wish us all to become better qualified, and therefore more competent, beekeepers. There may well come a time when you have to be licensed to keep bees and one of the conditions to granting such a document maybe possessing certificates as proof of commitment. Unfortunately, the content of the talk didn't manage to migrate from the ears to the spaces between for many of those present, and I have been inundated with questions ever since (I am posting this five days late). Fortunately, I am very patient, that is to say, I'm too bloody lazy to berate anybody.

I have just posted last Saturday's, "Honey."