St Clement's churchyard is a wonderful place where bees and birds alike abound.  This year I have received a great number of phone calls and emails that 'my' bees were swarming.  This has not been the case…this year.

There have been over six swarms coming to our little green patch in the centre of Cambridge.  I have captured two, another beekeeper took another and the rest moved on.  I am excited to have mastered the art of getting the bees in a box.  And not without a great deal of cartoon antics that have humoured the neighbourhood!

I start processing honey from my established hive and will be selling at St Clement's open days.

I would like to thank the neighbours, especially those close by, for being patient with both me, and the bees.

Today I checked the hive, which was buzzing with activity.  This is good. Yet, no matter how hard I searched I could not find my queen.  Granted, there are a lot of bees in there! So then I looked for signs that the queen was there, such as eggs.  However, was not 100% sure if I found any.  I am a new bee keeper so don't have those lightening fast egg identifying skills yet as yet.  

I will have to go out again tomorrow to look again in hopes to find the queen or eggs.  When I find the queen I will clip her wings, which I should have done when I got her instead of letting her adjust to her new surroundings.   Live and learn.

So today I only get a "B" for my bee keeping skills.  So sad, as I am an "A" student!

Flowers are blooming all over the garden and the church yard and the bees are loving it!  I have been planting wild flowers and other bee friendly plants as well. Never happier bees have I seen.

I have had my darling bees for a week now and have found the queen right off each time.  I feel so happy when I see her hard at work and surrounded by her drones, all the while the worker bees are hard at work building the hive.

I have already placed the new 'used' hive in the general area and am hoping for homing a swarm this summer.  Here is keeping my fingers crossed.

I have not really been maintaining my blog for The Old Vicarage; however I will try to be better in the future.  

On Monday I received my nuc of Buckfast bees and it has been an exciting time.  I set up the nuc in the spot I chose in the churchyard, which gets plenty of sun in the winter and shade in the summertime.  I am hopeful that I chose a good spot.  

I gave them a few days to adjust to the spot and yesterday I transferred them into the hive and gave them some food to get them off to a good start.  The food is probably not needed as there is plenty of pollen this week and flowers are blooming in the garden of the Old Vicarage and the churchyard, so there is plenty to keep them busy bees! When I transferred them I checked for the queen and was very pleased to find her easily. She is a new queen so she will be good for three to four years.  In that time I can learn how to rear my own queen as a replacement.

I also bought a used hive which is locked up in the truck waiting to be placed next to the new hive for any bees looking for a new home or for a swarm if one presents itself.  

A lot has happened since I started blogging about the Old Vicarage.  Stephen and I have gotten married, had many family and friends visit and always have a project going.  I have been taking courses for bee keeping and will start keeping bees in June.  I am excited about this new venture and hope I have many productive and happy bees!

Stephen has been paining and is happy to have finished a very detailed painting he has been working on for some time.  He has also purchased a new Gibson guitar which he is tickled about.  I love having a house full of music.

Pearl seems to have a boy friend in the way of a big tabby cat that comes in an out of the cat flap.  He seems to make himself at home.  Not sure who owns him yet, but he is polite and tidy, so we are not fussed.

I have made a lot of changes in the last year on the house.  Mostly painting walls; and sometimes repainting them.  If I keep it up the rooms will start getting smaller!  Nevertheless, the house is evolving and is a joy to live in.

The garden is coming along and I spend a great deal of time in it, as well as the churchyard, which is a work in progress.  I love being outside in the fresh air covered in dirt.

The largest change is the website.  I have moved theoldvicarage-thompsonslane.com to oldvicarage.org  which is obviously much easier to remember.  I hope it does not cause too much inconvenience for my few loyal web-watchers.