The Fashion Issue

Check out the fashionable new Anti-Woodpecker-Cage!

I love the fact that it's recycled; it was made out of the remains of a table that we salvaged from a pavement in Finchley - which saw lots of good use as a hobbycraft table in our garden in Rosemary Avenue before it came with us to Slough, where it was used till it literally fell apart, and now it will live on for so much longer, put to good use in protecting our bees.

The bees themselves seemed a bit disconcerted initially - they have been flying long into the autumn afternoons, and they've been bringing back huge wads of pollen, some of it bright neon yellow slapdashed in messy piles against their legs and some of it, whiter and packed neatly. I do wonder if She is still laying - a bit of a nerve-wracking thought at this late stage of the year. I do also worry that some of the pollen is ivy and will be packed into honey stores that become as thick, solid and inedible as concrete. A pity to waste space on such useless stuff!

As I sat and watched one afternoon, the bees drifted in and out past the chickenwire, taking a few moments each way to align themselves between gaps and sometimes alighting on the wire to wait or preen or just - I suspect - to look back at me. They have accepted the wire and carry on regardless.

It's only just in the last day or so that they have "shut up shop" and gone deep into the hive.

I am hoping for one last sunny warm afternoon as an opportunity to pop a new block of baker's fondant inside to see them through to Christmas. Then, just before I leave for Africa, they will get their Christmas gift, and I will not see them again till spring.

As always, half my heart is down there at the bottom of the garden with them, seeing them through the winter cold. Hope they survive!