Der Kolli Sepp

Early start, Angie left at 7:00am aboard Sultan to meet friend Dani and ride over to her new stables. The dogs went crazy at not being allowed to go along, and Luna when let out, immedately picked up the scent and would have gone charging off. Had to babysit them indoors until the call came they had arrived at the new stables and we then went over with the trailer to pick them up. Lovely relaxed, informal, friendly stable and it turned out we shared several common friends. Back home, Angie went for a dog walk while I got the pool in action. The pump is acting up, not doing it's full bit of pumping water through the heating pipes. Will have to look in to it. Angie has been in and declared the water temperature of 19°C at 1.5m depth to be lovely. Even though it was over 30°C in the shade on the terrace, I will wait before dipping the big toe.

Just as we got back home with the trailer, Sepp arrived on his oldtimer (30 years+) BMW R80/7, I think the classic police motorbike of the 80's. Sepp is Angie's step-sister's husband whatever you call them. In Germany there is a "Schwippschwager" which is the brother of one's sister-in-law, so he isn't that and anyway the slight nuance of Schwipp being "tidly" doesn't apply as Sepp doesn't any longer drink alcohol. Sepp has to live with 3 horse crazy women in the household. He had planned an escape today with his son for a bike tour but son's girlfriend wanted to ride pillion on son's bike and that meant Sepp would have to drive "slowly" AND look in the rear view mirror from time to time. So he set off alone from near St Otillien Benedictine monastry and abbey for a tour in our part of the world, mainly on the basis that there are much fewer police motorcycle speed checks and some lovely winding & hilly country roads. The last abbot of St Otillien is now Bendectine Abbot Primate in Rome but he is often back here to play electric guitar or even flute at gigs with his rock band "Feedback". Here he is playing Smoke on the water with Deep Purple when his own band were the "warm up".
Anyway - as Sepp set off to make the local roads unsafe, up drove Beekeeper Godfather Peter to do a status check. As he feared, although there is still plenty of room in the hive, the weather is causing all sorts of problems and they are threatening to swarm. So out with my new hive which hadn't yet been treated as planned with linseed oil and we made two hives, the only problem we couldn't find the queen. Peter knows some tricks and I need to recheck this evening when it should be easier to find her. The "off-spring" hive is coming along well but there was no sign of a new queen, again possibly due to the weather, so we put a comb in with queen cells from the other hive in the hope they will successfully activate a queen. If all goes well I might end up with 3 hives this year but unlikely any honey!
It is clear to see the bees have already had to use up much of the gathered nectar for their own use during the miserable spring.

So along with horses, motorbikes and pool pumps, a busy bee day. Tomorrow it's due to get warmer. It's our turn this weekend, UK will be better soon. Have a good week one & all.