Alien Life.

Several months ago, Mrs TD ate some baked beans (other tinned foods are available) and, being a thrifty soul left the remaining contents of the tin in the fridge. Several weeks ago she took them out of the fridge to throw away as they were beginning to mature nicely and I, seizing the opportunity, squirrelled them away to a secret place where they would be nice and warm and comfortable. However, I have to admit that cooked beetroot produces far more creative results than any other culture medium of which I am aware.
 
In a different life, we had a very successful bee keeping meeting – successful on many fronts. We had two new prospective bee keepers with us who had contacted us through the pages of Facebook; they seemed impressed, particularly with the following picnic, though I must remember to take the milk next time.
 
The meeting was at my apiary, so it was my party and I was able to tell off el Presidente (who also happens to be a national examiner of bee keepers) for pointing a smoker at my bees; this led to a discussion on the appropriate use of the smoker. There is a habit of puffing smoke in through the front door of a hive before opening it; my argument is that there’s no point annoying the girls needlessly, they are likely to retaliate. Many years ago, I was told to use as little smoke as possible as it disrupts the bees’ behaviour leaving you able to tell much less about what is going on in a hive as a result; at that time, “as little as possible” was a heck of a lot but, over the years, I have learnt to be more gentle and was able to go through the three hives without using the smoker for anything other than coaxing the bees away from the joints in the hives as they were being re-assembled; sort of stopping the bees from getting their fingers shut in the door. The biggest problem with the meeting (apart from the milk) was that I was too busy to Blip, hence the need for baked beans.