On Monday we get a call about a swarm of bees at the primary school. We go there and find them in a clamp, on a tree branch. So we get a box under them and give em a good shake, and they drop into the box. Those that were left, were scooped up into a plastic bag and was brought home.

We got them all into one temporary/catcher hive and stuck a queen guard to the front of it to keep the queen in. If she goes, then the whole swarm goes.

Day two, The bees are happily buzzing about and enjoying them self and only two or three died during the night.

Day three. We find that the bees are all gathering on the front of the hive and by that I mean from top to bottom, I first think that maybe they can't get in as we were worried that the gaps in the queen guard was to small, then we read that if it gets to stuffy inside, the drones (male bees that can't sting and is the breeders), who are bigger than the females, are sent outside as they don't have a continuous function. But the bees outside, are all the smaller bees. And the drones can't get through the queen guard.

First let me remind you that we try to work with the bees later in the day when it is cooler, as this calms them down. So at about four o' clock, we suit up and go to an old "windpomp"(wind powered water pump) that doesn't work anymore. The windpomp is about 400 meters away from our home and has over the last few months become the home of a swarm of bees. We can't extract the swarm, because they are in the borehole, and we have to smoke them from beneath.

Now these bees have become a nuisance and we fear they might become a problem later on when we start processing the honey. There for we have to get rid of them, by either catching them, or by chasing them away. We might be able to save the wax(wax can be expensive and also, it takes the bees the same amount of time to make four kilograms of honey, as it takes them to make one kilogram of wax).

We decide on about four o' clock as this was a good time when we previously went there, only we didn't recon it would be warmer.

So the smokers are on and we are suited up. The plan is to attach a piece of garden hose, about two meter long, to the one smoker and then lower it past the wax combs to the bottom of the hive, this way, if we pump smoke in, the bees will come out.

My brother in law opens the end cap of the well and then states in no uncertain terms that there is trouble, even though I am standing a good ten meters away, stoking the smoker, I get pelted by bees, yes, pelted, it feels as if someone is throwing pebbles at me. I an not alarmed, as I have my bee suit on and I start blowing some smoke at the bees at which moment the smoker dies and I feel the bees being real close to me, as if they were walking on me inside my suit,but I am not worried...

...then I see three bees walking across the visor INSIDE my suit, so I worry a bit and decide to calm down as they may sting me if threatened. I start walking away calmly to get away from their "attack zone". I then realize that a bee has started to explore my ear and fails to get inside my ear, I am still calm and keep walking, this bee then moves to my earlobe and I know then that I am going to get stung. By this time there is about five bees inside my suit and in my face and as I start to panic( when a bee stings you, it leaves behind a pheromone that attracts other bees to sting in the same spot). I grab a hand full of long dry grass, as I have drop the useless smoker by now, and then remember that my father in law has my zippo, as he was lighting the other smoker. So smoke is out of the question.

Then I got Stung, on the earlobe, and the little blighter wasn't even trying to get away, I felt it sitting there waiting to die. This whole time I was moving away and found that the bees on then outside had left me and there were only two left inside. Prompted by my father in law, I unzipped my hood, took of my cloves and got out of the suit. I honestly now appreciate the proverbs "to have a bee in your bonnet" and "to make a bee line". So we left it as an unsuccessful day and thought to come back the next day. I found out that the bees entered my suit through the smallest hole in my suit, at the zipper.

Today.My father in law was up at about three this morning and was reading about bees. He later went and removed the the queen guard from the hive, and now the bees seem to bee happy, I think they are settled and they were seen today flying in and out probably to collect food. As soon as they start carrying pollen to the hive, we can move them to their own hive.

Busy busy, So I am of to the windpomp again, this time the holes are patched.
Until next time.

ps: sorry that there aren't pictures today.

Ah, Beekeeping. Relaxing, therapeutic, not to mention the money you can make.

Only, you need bees. So on Saturday we got more equipment, hives, stands,etc. The catchers we put up produced no bees as the swarm we targeted upped and left. Not surprising as it is the worst month for beekeeping. So we place some catcher hives on the shed roof, and placed one hive next to the yard. But Monday was a whole different story.
At about nine o'clock we were greeted by this..

BEES AT THE ENTRANCE TO THE HIVE OUTSIDE THE YARD.


Unfortunately, the camera I used couldn't capture what the eye was seeing. Because the hives was standing outside, seven of them, bees came streaming in. And it seemed like about five hives were being occupied. I was super stoked, and didn't want to go back to work (as I had quickly slipped home to see what was happening). They were all over the place and it looked promising.

I got on the phone and started calling around and organizing some spots to place our soon to be filled hives. Little did I know...
By the time I got home at four, the bees were gone. Only a few remained in one hive and they didn't look very busy. By this morning, there were none.

I fear I don't have enough life to live. Meaning, I have so many ambitions, that I don't think I can ever get to them all.

One of these ambitions was to be a bee keeper and honey farmer, just one of many "it would be nice to do" things, not really having any way of getting started, until last year.
My Mother-in-law left her job to be a full time baby minder for my wife and my son. So she thought of ways to have an income while being at home, and one of these were honey. So earlier this year, my Father-in-law lost his job due to unforeseen reasons, and the need for an income intensified.

So with the help of my Father, I found an old beekeeper, and not only did he offer to sell us an all you need, beekeeping "stater kit" but was also willing to share his fifty odd years of beekeeping knowledge and experience,only, the price tag was way more than all of us had to spend.So with the help of my wife's accountant uncle, we managed to get financing from my M-I-L's brother and F-I-L's cousin, who both saw the golden opportunity. Golden opportunity you ask? Well, The greatest part of honey in South Africa, is imported, as there are only a few large scale honey producers in the country, therefor it is a viable market.

This all took a few months to work out as there were traveling up and down and meetings with our would be supplier and then finally, about a month ago, payments were made. And today, some of the equipment was fetched. In fact, we now have eleven catcher hives, two protective veils, two smokers, a hive brush, and a hive tool. The rest is on its way. We also have the location of two bee colonies, and will be placing a catcher hive tomorrow to get our first colony.

IF this was a perfect world, and I was the writer I dream to be, you all would be jumping up, screaming and giving all round high fives. Yes The saga of mister Monroe continues...

Another Wordzzle (HERE are the rules) and these are the words.

(5 word): gone gravity, variable, swinging on a star, gardening, trombone


(10 word challenge): carpenter ants, freak, good as new, jelly beans, olive oil, scamper, champion, goose egg, pizza, ceiling fan

...This is the story so far... Mr Monroe, An avid salesman, though he hates it, has been stranded on a deserted island for a few months, after being chucked off a cruise ship by his rival, over a certain seven figure contract. The story continues, with our hapless hero starting to enjoy the island life.... a bit to much.

"gone gravity, gone" he yells out as he dives off the cliff. Care free and unrestrained, Monroe plummets to the surface of the rock pool he found a couple of days after landing on the island. It was by accident, as a few hours earlier he found a shrub with fruit, about the size of a goose egg. After tasting it, he swore that it had the same flavor and texture as jelly beans. Little did he know that these particular berries, contain hallucinogens and before Monroe knew it, he was swinging on a star, floating across the island, when he went over the cliff, and ended up in the pond. From then on, it became his bathtub.

He entered the water like a brick at the Olympics, and still scored himself a 9,6. "I am still the diving champion on this island" he cried out. The sun was steadily rising through the trees as he had to scamper out onto the small beach, he grabbed his, by now, sleeveless shirt and ran off through the jungle to Landing beach. He had started building a raft one day, with no help from the Jelly bean fruit. He would later on in life have sworn that he did it with the help from a platoon of carpenter ants and various pieces of wood. He later discovered to his dismay, that the ants was only good for feasting on his home-made gardening tools and that none of the materials used for the raft actually floated as the steel-like wood was to heavy.

He did how ever find that the raft made quite a good signal fire when one day he dropped a bottle of olive oil, that he had made himself ("well it looks like olives, and it tastes like olives. hey!! is that a trombone I hear playing 'Smoke on the water? Dammit, Jelly beans all over again') on the raft. At that very moment, by some freak accident, lightning struck some where in the middle of the island.

The next day though, he went down to the raft and lit it with a torch from his home fire he had made on day two. Now Monroe was heading there to place more green foliage on it to get his daily smoke signal. He nearly attracted a ship once, or should I say, he once, attracted nearly a ship. It was in fact a flotilla of debris, doing its world tour.

But not today, for some reason Monroe felt lucky today. Firstly, he found some berries that actually didn't have a mind altering affect. Secondly, his new home made tools actually survived the ants for once, and thirdly, there was no rain last night, so fixing the signal fire only required adding a few pieces of the flotilla, (which he swam out to and retrieved) and new greenery, and light it. He had to feel lucky because he just used the last of his "olive oil" which actually burned like jet fuel. ("heck, if I had wheels and variable speed gearbox, I could set up a world Island speed record") And it would take at least two more weeks before his new batch was ready.

When the fire stack was as good as new, he lit the "fuel" and the fire roared into life. A few minutes later, white smoke was billowing up as if a new Pope was elected, And Monroe felt strangely at ease. To no one in particular he said, " today, I am getting of this Island. And the first thing I will do, Is have a Pepperoni Pizza, with extra cheese, thank you." Monroe then lay back, and stared off into the distance. He enjoyed this part of the day most. Watching pods of dolphins galloping by, or to see the occasional Humpback, breach on the horizon, which was exactly what he was now looking at. From the distance, he saw an unknown seabird, fly from the direction of the whale and he could almost imagine it to have taken off from the whale. itself.

He did this for a couple more minutes, then got up and walked off into the forest to look for something to eat. He picked what was probably totally harmless berries and plopped a handful into his mouth. And then the sound struck him. It sounded as if an over sized ceiling fan got loose and was now hunting for dust bunnies. Monroe frantically started scurrying for the berry bush. "Did I just eat the orange berries with the blue flowers again?" He panicked, as he was sure it was an early onset of the 'Full Metal Jacket' trip again. "WHOP WHOP WHOP WHOP" sounded the military choppers, at least no gun fire, yet. "MONROE!" "Oh crap, Charly is onto me" Monroe headed to the beach, " How did they find out my name?" "Monroe, Are you in there? We saw the smoke. Come out".

As Monroe stepped out, of the jungle path, he first saw the red and green Helicopter, and on it something resembling the company Logo. And walking towards him, dressed in a garish avocado green safari suit, was the Boss himself. He held onto his wide brim straw hat, as the blades ripped at it. "Thank god we Found you Monroe, come on, the boat is waiting out there" he was pointing towards the whale. "Is this real sir, only, I have been having bad luck with the local cuisine." At that moment, Mr Kent was heading towards him from the Bell 407, sporting his usual cheap cut gray suite. " Thank heavens your alive, why didn't you get the contract?" " I guess I am not hallucinating, but just to be sure", Monroe punched Mr Kent in the nose. "Whad da fug wad dat for?Did dew thee dat Bob?" "just a reality check Kent, lets get you out of here Monroe". "Just a moment sir, just want to get my bag".

Monroe headed up to the edge of the jungle where his make shift shelter was and grabbed his bag, which contained about a pound of "olives" and three jars of fermented "olive oil" ( the jars were in the bottom of the crate that landed on the island with Monroe) "just a few items to remind me of the home I had here sir" (and a nice pension plan, if I hand it over to my R & D buddy at that fuel company, along with the co-ordinates of the island) " You don't happen to have the position of this here Island sir?" well of course Monroe, but I don't think any of us has reason ever to return here?" "No sir, this place is as barren as a mule sir".

In South Africa we have two major sports codes. Soccer (football for non South Africans) and Rugby union, or just plain rugby. Soccer is traditionally a black sport and finds its home grounds in places such as Mmamelodi and SOWETO which is the biggest location in our country. Professional Soccer matches are often played on Rugby fields such as Loftus and Ellis Park.

Rugby on the other hand is mostly a white sport and has never been seen played professionally on any Soccer field such as Orlando Stadium.... until two weeks ago.

2010 is a spectacular year for South Africa, as we are hosting the FIFA Football World cup, the first for the continent. As this is such a huge event, nine new stadiums has been built to accommodate the matches, and others has been upgraded. Because of this, Some Rugby Stadiums will be used for the World cup, one of which is Loftus Versfeldt in Pretoria. Loftus is home to the Blue Bulls franchise which is the Provincial side "the Blue Bulls" and the Super 14 side "The Vodacom Bulls".

For those who don't know, the Super 14 is an international contest between Provincial teams from South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. And from next year it will be Known as the Super 15, as a team from Argentina will also compete.

Now back to the matter. As Loftus is one of the World Cup venues, The Bulls had two years ago agreed that if it should happen that they had a Home semi final and or home final this year, they would use another stadium as home base, as the dates would conflict with the handing over of Loftus to FIFA. Many different venues were scouted but for some reason one and only one made perfect sense. ORLANDO Stadium.. Home to local Soccer Powerhouse, Orlando Pirates.

Orlando Stadium is located smack in the middle of Soweto and about a Kilometer down the road from Soccer City, Bafana Bafana (South African National Soccer team) home ground. As the Bulls had secured a home semi final, Afrikanerdom was heading to Valakazi street Soweto.

Please note, the greater part of Bulls supporters are white Afrikaans males, the same guys whose fathers and grandfathers created Apartheid and places like Soweto and some of these guys last set foot in this township armed with assault rifles and in military vehicles. The truth is 85% of white South Africans feel that they will be

a. Robbed
b. Raped
c. Murdered
or
d. All of the above
if they set foot in Soweto.

So amazed was the country when on semi final Saturday none of this happened, in fact the Monday newspapers were stacked with photos of blue clad whites drinking beer in tin shacks along with their black brothers, side by side. I was elated to see it as I then thought that this is the real beginning of the change.

And low and behold, the next week was the final, again at Orlando, and Bulls supporters was welcomed by the locals like old friends. And Bulls were grateful to be allowed to return.

This is just the beginning of a great wave, set in motion in 1995 by Nelson Mandela, as can be seen in the movie INVICTUS.

Today I am not just a proud Bulls fan, but a Proud South African

...I hope that will draw attention to my blog. Anyway, I have been AWOL since the beginning of the year. here follows the reason/excuse and what happened since then.

As I didn't have an anti-virus (I know and I have rectified) my laptop got over infected with viruses, and the punk who sent them apparently lay awake for days waiting for me to reconnect so they could continue helping themselves to my data. After about a month, I finally got everything right.

Further, my baby boy was born and that took up a lot of time. Then my Jack Russel had puppies, my father in law then got accused of being Lex Luther, mother in law left work, brother in law got retrenched. I studied up and became an expert on the validity of the polygraph. Wife got flu, Baby got flu, then I got flu. A black dumb ass tried to whip up a white massacre, then the great white jack ass got killed in his bed, with his pants down, then everyone started the blame game.

Then the dumb ass stooped even lower to abolish the free press, and another white jack ass failed to handle the free press. all the time planet earth are trying to shake us monkeys off her back, but still we don't get the hint. On that, Doesn't any one else find it strange, all these natural disasters we are having?

This all happened, the truth is, I have been getting home late for the past few months and were to tired to blog, But now I am back.

Another wordzzle. For more info, visit the raven's nest. Here goes..

(10 word challenge): alternate reality, shadows, frantic, tomatoes, field, lilies, DVD, snow mobile, aggravation, music

(5 word): grounds for divorce, pink panther, salutations, wavering, lasagne



...I find myself on a desert Island, and to no fault of my own, let me tell you. In an alternate reality, there would probably be some maidens trooping around here somewhere, hiding up a palm tree, or spying on me from the nearby, jungle shadows.

The meaning of this you ask? Well, last Tuesday, Wendy, the bosses Secretary has me on the line and informs me that the boss will grant me a short meeting. something is up, as I never requested any such thing. Immediately, the theme music for the Pink Panther starts playing in my head as I suspect a plot is about to thicken. So I head up to the penthouse office. "He will see you now" Wendy spiels. The oblong framed glasses, tightly buned hair, impaled by Chinese cutlery, and of course the suite. I am sure here apartment has an assortment of Inquisitional devices, and none of them are for the aesthetics. I give a short rap on a slab of what I suspect to be a two thousand year old red wood, and then enter. I am almost disappointed when the door doesn't creek ominously.

"Sit down Mr Monroe, You will have My full attention in a moment." Amazing how he can verbalise a capital. "I believe you know Mr Kent?" I think of the little script I have running on the finance server named DUNE, and I am almost frantic with fear until I remember a certain DVD, containing explicit images that would certainly be grounds for divorce, If the wife of our head of accounting ever saw it. "Of course sir, How is the wife and kids these days? Janette informs me the books keep you in the office, into the wee hours" That should drive it home. "ah.. uhm.. ahum.. Yes, yes, well we tend to keep busy, and my P.A is such a necessity at those times." Janette: aka P.A aka DVD subject #2. "I believe you wanted to see me sir" the sound of honey. " Mr. Kent here was just telling me about the marvelous job you have done over in the east." " An asset to the company,Bob, Was my words." gibbering git. " That will be all Kent, don't let me Detain you." Ten bucks says he is off to security to remove any evidence.

" So Monroe, I seldom do, but I must agree with Kent, Equipping the Sheik's Private hospital, even after the whole Bin Laden debacle, is quite amazing." "Harder than driving a snow mobile out of a viper pit, let me tell you Sir, but not impossible." " Yes, yes. I do believe you have a way with the impossible..." Hold plot over medium heat and stir, and you will see it thicken. "... That is why I want to send you on a two week cruise in the Caribbean, As a gesture of thanks." I look up and wonder If I can see the puppeteer. "Will this trip be business or pleasure, Sir?" " No, pleasure, definitely... But. well, I so happen to be Tee mates with the ship's captain, and he agreed to seat you at his table for the trip, so If you happen to meet, oh, I don't know, The Medical head of the liner, You might have a proposition for him?" And then I was off on my cruise.

Aggravation can only lightly describe what I am feeling. Mr Yeng, my prospective client, has been wavering in his resolve, on and off since I introduced him to Our marvelous range in "mednology" and I suspect other agents are afoot, so I take a chance. "Lets be honest Mr Yeng, I know about the other offer that has been presented to you. I just want to know who they sent." thumbs crossed." Look, Mr. James said I shouldn't let you know about his involvement, but..." Aha! So MEDPRO QS is involved, I thought I spotted James on the Lido deck last night. "Listen to me Yeng, if you look closely at the strawberry field he is offering you, you will in fact find tomatoes. Don't get me wrong, nothing better than tomatoes, same nutritional value as strawberries, but look, passengers come aboard your fleet and expect Strawberries and cream, tomatoes they can have at home." And that was that.

Or so I thought..

Out on the deck, no one in sight, enjoying an after supper smoke. "Salutations Monroe" dripping smugness. "James." I offer in response. "Not the supper I expected on a cruise like this, but I suppose the budget is going elsewhere. Those tomatoes were ghastly, don't you think?" The ball drops. " Look James, Business is business, and I very well enjoyed the lasagne." " I am sure you have, but true, business is etcetera. I will be off then, only, tell me. White or yellow?" " I don't quite Understand?" The lilies I should send for your memorial, enjoy your trip."accompanied by a sudden shove "Huh?" and then I was falling.

Two days later, I washed up on this Island with, ironically, a case of strawberries and no maidens to share it with. Maybe I can build a coconut phone.