What a Scorcher

The garden apple tree seems to have many apples but many fewer leaves in this very odd year. Is that why any of the low-hanging fruit I happen to touch falls off, and stormy days result in a carpet of half-grown fruit? Moreover it provides poor shade to the garden table; I've never had to help it with a sun-shade before

I still have the microscopic enemies of the bees in my sights; the slights of the past are not forgotten! The larger hive components were all cleansed as they were emptied in May, but these smaller bits and pieces have reached the top of the jobs list. In the background, several flat boards that cover the top of the stack of boxes in a hive - very simple but still with dimensions carefully judged so that the gap beteeen the board and the frames is just the size that the bees will not fill with wax or propolis

Set up for display, and lying in the foreground, are 'queen excluders' - the grilles I described yesterday that allow slim workers to pass through, but hold back wide-abdomened queens, like a north-of-England 'gap (or squeeze) stile'. Many are made from stainless or galvanised steel, but these cheap and cheerful ones are bamboo 

The cleansing process involves scraping off as much wax and propolis as possible (really, the job is better done in winter temperatures, when they are brittle), then using a small wire brush to attack gaps and crevices in particular. Finally, I use a propane/butane gas burner (the type that is sold for weed control on paths) to play a flame over the wood and 'scorch' it - hopefully along with any bacteria that remain. Any residual propolis 'bubbles' rather satisfyingly in the flame, like boiling toffee. With the rather grim memories of destroying colonies in the spring still fresh, my scorching may have been a touch more assiduous than necessary - as any cook knows, there is a fine line between 'scorched' and 'burnt'