B day

Thanks to Messrs B&C (well OK just MrB as MrC was a guest), not a single kidney stone despite the chainsaw & splitter. I did say as he departed last night, that I would hold him responsible for not allowing me to have my normal pint/hour in the 3 hours he was here.

When he arrived this evening to return the horse trailer bucket he needed yesterday to transport the zucchini, he clearly felt guilty and straight away agreed to a cup of coffee. He usually looks at my daily Blip and understandably asks what certain things mean. Today it was "Watney's Red Barrel". He hasn't yet the courage to ask what "The Ashes" are from a few weeks ago - I suspect he looked it up in a pure word translation programme and that frightened him off!

It was good he came by as I had spent an hour sitting directly in front of the bee hives trying to get a Blip and generally observe. Two incidents occured that I hadn't seen before:
1) Two bees came flying out of the entrance clinging to each other and clearly fighting. They landed in the grass next to me and grabbled with each other before one flew away, the other remained in the grass until I left a good 30 minutes later. I showed MrB the photos and he could see the bee was not one on it's last legs ("cleaning lady" bees clear out the dead bees from the hive) and thinks it was probably an intruder from elsewhere trying to steal honey. Certain worker bees are bouncers charged with door security and deal with intruders accordingly. When establishing a new hive, one only allows a small entrance to make it easier to defend a small colony and then as the hive grows, one opens up the hole more & more. Flickr photo of opening
2) and todays Blip, was a case not even MrB understood as it was the reverse of what normally happens at this time of year which is that the colony reduces it's numbers so as to just have sufficient numbers to survive the winter. This generally means killing off the male drones who do nothing in winter except eat the stored honey, do no cleaning or warming the hive and just have s** on their minds. What I witnessed was two worker bees dragging a living male drone back from trying to leave the hive. Must be(e) the Paul Newman of the bee world. Flickr photos of the action.

This evening cooked an interesting potato/fennel (from the garden) dish to accompany smoked pork chops. Vegies cooked in milk & cream, then drained covered in parmesan, thyme, rosemary and orange zest and popped under the grill to brown. Too complicate to explain but thanks to MissWinterFinch for the recipe - she doesn't know she is responsible. I enjoyed it, Angie is still out deliberating - typical Bavarian: "Was der Bauer nicht kennt, frisst er nicht" or "What the farmer doesn't know, he doesn't eat".

Hope one and all (and Angelique/MrA) enjoyed this evenings G&T start to the weekend and wishing you all a good one especially J on a 3 day stag weekend in Berlin with 11 mates. Shame they weren't in Munich, then he could have brought over a bottle of Pimms.