Correx.

I have nothing against the Midlothian Fostering service, they do valuable work, but they are prone to leave these notices up for longer than is absolutely necessary. If you read the small print, they are advertising a drop-in meeting for next Thursday, but I can guarantee that these large three sided placards will not be removed until the notices go up for the following meeting in six months’ time. That is, unless some public spirited bee keeper takes them down.
 
In this day and age, bee keepers have a use for the correx sheeting of which these are made, cut into the right size to fit the open mesh floors that are de rigueur in the modern hives, they serve as sampling trays. For those not in the know, correx sheet is a plastic version of the corrugated cardboard so popular in the packaging industry and, as such, has the useful properties of being light weight, rigid, and virtually impervious to most common chemicals. Its downside is that it is comparatively expensive to buy – particularly when it has to be packaged and posted. Earlier in the year, I received an email from a bee keeping club wishing to do a bulk purchase of the stuff. Perhaps I should send out an email requesting that public spirited apiarists should go around “tidying up” after Midlothian County Council. 
It has not escaped my notice that both council and general elections provide a good source of the material and both of these events are imminent.
 

On a different bee keeping front, one of my colonies swarmed on Monday, vanishing without trace. Bees need time and good weather to build up enough resources to swarm which means I do not expect them to expect them to do so before mid-June in these climes - ever; with April having been bitterly cold (we had blizzards a week ago) I have not been able to thoroughly inspect my colonies until now to assess the options for swarm control. I could have sold those bees for about £200 or kept them and, weather permitting, had a good honey crop off them.