Bees and Books

The bee news has got better. There has been some rain (not much, but enough to make a difference) in the last two weeks and it seems to have got the nectar flowing, In the last week I have extracted 100 lbs of honey from my two hives and they are still going great guns despite the current dull and overcast weather. So what seemed a bad season is turning into a so-so one. Ali reckons she has got 75 lbs so far from her national hive and they are still piling it in. Pretty good for a beginner. Hers are rather fierce bees and she got stung on her ear through her bee hood last week so now wears a white woolly hat inside the hood for added protection.
Next Friday I shall be at Hay-on-Wye to do an event at the Book Festival with Judy Golding and Tobias Hill. I'll be talking about Golding from a boigrapher's angle, Tobias about Golding and the sea, and Judy about her memoir The Children of Lovers. In the evening (6.00) I'll be on a panel at the HowTheLightGetsIn philosophy festival, discussing utopias and dystopias with the environmental journalist Paul Kingsworth and the scientist Kevin Warwick.

Bees and Books

The bee news is mixed. one of my three hives failed to survive the winter. the queen must have died in the horrible pre-Christmas freeze. On the other hand the hive that had the little late swarm has boomed and is now bursting with bees and working hard. I just extracted a super of honey (the oilseed rape has been in flower for three weeks here - which is three weeks earlier than last year when it flowered on 1 May) and there are two more supers filling. The third hive has been slower starting - I think they have concentrated on filling their spare store-space in the brood chamber. But they are now filling their first super. With luck my queenless hive may attract an early swarm. Hope so. Ali's national hive next door to mine is going great guns. She extracted a super yesterday. There's a cold north-east wind, which the bees hate, so they're not in a very good mood.
This week I go up to Glasgow for a one-day conference at the Glasgow School of Art on Thursday (5 May) which will be looking at questions raised in my book What Good Are The Arts? A bit daunting.