Bees, visiting heron, bees and the garden

Sunday late afternoon saw me back at Guingamp station collecting more Workaways.  This time a French couple from the Paris region, Sylvain and Marion.  They have settled in and worked well this week and will spend the weekend with relatives north of Guingamp before returning on Monday to carry on helping me here.  

The other visitor I have had this week was not so welcome.  He is now called Hervé and this is him (or possibly her).

Hervé is very handsome and in other circumstances I might be pleased to have him around, however he is abusing my hospitality by eating my pond fish.  Fifteen minutes after the photo above, Sylvain, Marion and I manoeuvred a netted arc into the pond to protect them.  The next photo shows him standing on the net trying to bypass it.

He has no fear and spends his leisure hours in my garden - here he is walking past Gavin, my man in the garden.

The garden hens are perplexed and nervous and chicken heads move in unison like a slow motion Wimbledon match as he walks past or stands, resting, with neck withdrawn.  They clearly do not know what he is or if he poses a threat.

There are two proper lakes in the hamlet and I would like him to be persuaded to visit them instead.

On Monday, again in Guingamp - perhaps I should move nearer -I had two monitoring scans of my kidneys and urinary system and of my bone density.   As always, thank goodness, my kidneys etc are looking good and a clean bill of health.  Howver, I have slipped into the osteoporosis section of the chart for the bone density on both hips and on L2 in my lower back.  I am not aware of feeling any changes however, so that is partly good news.

Lots of plants doing well in the garden now.  Usually the rose on my pergola is disappointing and browns in the slightest rain, however because of the hot, dry weather we have had it has been lovely.

Wednesday saw friends, Jane and Alan bring me a swarm of bees with a white-marked queen for my empty hive.  They were all installed fairly quickly and seem to have settled. They kindly checked the other hives for health and honey production.  It was deemed necessary to add a second super to one of the pink hives - on the left in the photo below - as the first super is becoming full  - lovely news!  

The other two supers are certainly filling with honey but not to the same extent. I was told that probably I could start extracting honey in about 2-3 weeks.  Really exciting!

My Workaways have cleaned off the dirty frames from the bought in hive which was all but empty.  The final stragglers had left so that was the hive we were able to use for the new swarm.  I will be buying some more frames and foundation sheets to melt onto them over the next few weeks.  I'll also buy a couple more supers in case honey production steps up.  I should have been a boy scout!

I think I may now have the perfect Heron deterrent.  My guests for Middle Cottage have just this minutes arrived from Italy.  They have twin boys, Alberto and Tomaso, very excited to be here, who come with accompanying decibels!  I don't think I need worry about my fish for the next four days while they are staying ...   

Three things I like:

1.   Having Workaways helping me and enjoying their company.
2.   Cooking lots of different meals for my Workaways.
3.   Getting lots of reading done when the sun is shining and I can sit outside.  Part way through this one at the moment.