It All Started So Well....

Excitement was high in the Thomas household as Rick and I began to assemble our beehive. All went well to begin with as we put together the brood box. No disagreements and no hammered thumbs. And we read the instructions - such as they were.
A frisson of dissent began to creep into the teamwork as we started the 2 "supers", when I radically suggested we glue and nail as we go. In hindsight probably a bad idea.
A faint gloom developed when the "supers" did not look quite right. They definitely would not stack on the brood box without sizable (well bee-sizable) gaps. Surely this could not bee right!
A deep dark cloud of 'why did we want bees anyway?' began to ominously gather.

At this low ebb we sought guidance from an experienced Carlisle beekeeper to discover where had we gone wrong. Apparently it was not our fault - the flat-pack beehive was simply cut out wrongly and would have to go back. Not sure this lifted our spirits much.

However, it turns out that the afore-mentioned experienced Carlisle beekeeper makes all sorts of wonderful beehives - including the splendid ones on top of Fortnum and Mason. The ones we would want (more Martha Kearney than F&M) were only marginally more than the dreaded flat-pack one. So flat-pack one is winging its way back and we should pick up our beautiful pre-assembled one next week. And general bonhommie is restored to the Thomas abode!