Quiet times by the seaside

With the excitement of introducing new queen bees subsiding I looked forward to a lull in proceedings and a little bit of peace and quiet. Hmmmmm I think I can hear the sound if pigs flying!!!!!!!!!!

OK so what has kept me busy for the past week?

Had a call/ text/ email from our good friend (with the great house concerts) Pam. Pam, Julie and I often talk about travel and we'd contemplated becoming involved with Couchsurfing https://www.couchsurfing.org/n/dashboard . Pam had 2 potential Couchsurf couples and wondered whether we'd open our house to an Italian/ Czech couple. Discussion followed - should we/ could we/ will we? I the end the answer was YES WE WOULD! They would arrive on either Sunday or Monday afternoon.

Now back to our regular lazy weekend. First stop Bay Street for 90 minutes at the Costin Emporium of Pleasure and Pain (the gym). Session was good and we came home to get ready and head 90 minutes south to attend the Pambula Surf Life Saving Club Centenary Celebrations. http://www.merimbulanewsonline.com.au/story/2011428/pambula-surf-club-prepares-to-celebrate-100-years/



What a great day and fantastic night celebrating a fabulous achievement. We were well fed and entertained and spent the night with the Davey'sof Pambula Beach, thanks Meryl & Frank!! They even had a photographer who was able to photograph the Apiarist with one of nature's finest, John Liston. In the words of one of Pambula SLSC's greats, Jimmy McGrath, "it' s nice being with nice people"

The new Wagonga Inlet Runabout??????

Made an early start and headed home to arrive at Narooma SLSC in time for Australia Day Breakfast on the Beach. Mmmmmm they've done it again. Narooma Lions and the 
Surf Club fed more than 300 lots of sausages, bacon and eggs!

Unfortunately it ended up being a little too HOT for the Apiarist so we had to head for our favourite body cooling venue at Bar Beach where a 20 minute swim reduced his core body temperature where he could resume normal actvities!!! How lucky we are to live in the "Paradise" that some people call Narooma.

A few hours of staining and estapolling and then it was back into town for the Famous Narooma Lions Sunday BBQ. Sleep that night was welcome.....

Monday was a holiday for most and we celebrated the final day of the Australia Day long weekend with a bit more painting and preparations for our first Couchsurfers. At 5pm we welcomed Roberto and Yana who had contacted us through Couchsurfers via Pam and John. We fitted together well and entertained each other with stories of where we'd all been, what we'd done and what each other's travel plans were. 

After that pleasant meeting we headed on a short drive that took us to Buckridge Lookout and around the now slightly overgrown Scenic Drive (it's interesting how Forestry maintenance declines when they aren't logging) and home via the coastal drive from Dalmeny before a late BBQ dinner. I must admit a little trepidation when preparing a meal for an Italian chef http://www.vini.com.au/ but I only had to cook the marinated chicken breast as Roberto did the salad, Julie the desert (apple crumble) and the Breville did the fresh Frosty's Narooma bread. Good times!

 Let the visitors have a sleep but it was back to school for the Educator and a session at the Costin House of Pleasure and Pain (the gym) for the Apiarist before home and coffee and a late breakfast. Roberto and Yana went on a windy but warm coastal walk after the obligatory photo op at Australia Rock. 

With afternoon coming to an end a quick visit to Mum's before we were met by Julie fresh from a day with her fellow educators. I  don't think this will be the last we'll see of Yana and Roberto, and he's promised to prepare a meal next time they are here, and their stay has taught us that Couchsurfers and travellers will always be welcome.

 Oh yes what was that I wrote about peace and quiet..............

Back at the apiary - The Queen Arrives

After the weekend of music we needed to return as we were expecting royalty..

With our increasingly privatised Australia my normal practice of a phone call to the Post Office to let them know I had queens arriving went out the window so rather than these wonderful girls arriving in the cool of the morning they had to wait until noon. Bah to restructures!!

In each of these packages there i 1 queen bee and 6 attendant worker bees. So enough of the wingeing there was work to be done I had to fire up...

Smoker safely lit it was into the two queenless hives I had prepared the day before and introduce a queen in each colony (with a drink of sugar syrup)..

 There she is on the left hand side of the cage

Cage and queen go in

A sprinkle of syrup to keep the hive happy and to make acceptance of the queen more likely.

Keeping records in hieroglyphics only understandable by the frosty beekeeper

And then...........

Try out the new appliance - Yum!!!!

A weekend away from Paradise

A quick musical interlude...

As a break from our artistic endeavours (painting) @ 6 Perkins we headed north for a couple of days. First stop was Bendi, of course, where we basically did a bit less than very little. A swim, a relaxing drink and a relax..... nice

The main reason for the weekend away was to attend a day of the Illawarra Folk Festival http://illawarrafolkfestival.com.au/ JAF had seen an offer that was too good to refuse and not being people who are shy about being entertained we were off to Bulli for Sunday. We weren't disappointed!

This was a wonderfully, easy day full of magical musical entertainment! We basically found a couple of front row seats in the Black Diamond Marquee and enjoyed Andy Irvine.

 The workout routine with Taiko no Wa http://taikoz.com/TaikOz/TaikoNoWa.aspx followed.... How good is this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3D86jLVqFG4 for your arms

It's not often that the sound check is entertaining but with Dom Flemons 
http://www.domflemons.com/about.html 
everything is

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiPPkW-BmhQ

 If you've lived in Australia and listened to the radio or watched the cricket or footy you will have heard Greg Champion aka Champs. http://gregchampion.com.au/ Who could forget "I made a hundred in the backyard at Mum's" Great guitarist and songsmith and even better great fun. When you add to that the voice of Jane Saunders wow! Follow that set with Kavisha Mazzella http://www.kavisha.com/ you can understand why the Illawarra Folk Festival is so good.







Our time in the Black Diamond Marquee finished with the incomparable Archie Roach! http://www.archieroach.com.au/#!/ 

Finished our music and fun filled day with the Festival Finale @ the Slacky Flat Bar

2014 Year of the Bee

Whether it will be the Year of the Bee or not this year started with me spending time with my "girls"! That is the six legged and four winged variety!

I had been asked by two of my regular honey customers, Gwen and Eddie whether Gwen's son in law could have a look at my bees. We arranged for him to come to look at the "Home Apiary" at Perkins Parade around 9 on Wednesday morning. These days the home apiary is the only apiary, lol!! How times have changed....

Now one day is the much the same as the next so I had forgotten the day I'd arranged for the visit was New Year's Day and I'd had a fairly late night watching the excesses of the New Years Eve extravaganza on Sydney Harbour on the TV. It seems like an awful waste of money for something that can't be great for the environment to me but I guess I'm just getting old!

With the help of Phil, who is interested in becoming an amateur apiarist when he returns home, we managed to take enough supers of Ironbark (Eucalyptus Paniculata) honey

from the six hives to fill a few pails of honey and to sweeten me up. The slightly yellowish beeswax is from my bees foraging on dandelion flowers which are plentiful within flying distance of the hives. 

After a successful morning when we put the full supers of honey above escape boards and we returned to the apiary later in the afternoon and loaded the honey into the multi-purpose vehicle to transport it to my mother's extracting plant (my old honey house) ready to extract the next day after my gym session at Bay St.

The extract went fairly well but working in a hot extracting shed is not the ideal thing for a Person with MS so I returned home rather fatigued and fairly useless but I'mmmmm looking forward to