Thread 13 - TalkLair: “I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.”

[Kucinghitam]

(Previous thread 12).

Looks like spring has sprung! Tulips, apple blossom and early hay fever are upon us. In the TalkLair, we remain hunkered down keeping cosy and warm, because "something something 'til May is out". The hearth is glowing, the walls covered in dubious artwork, books by non-approved authors line the shelves, rugs are down on the floors (and assorted pets curled up on them).

We just won’t mention the gnawed bones of our prey over there in the corner of the cave…

Exactly. If you believe pronoins need to be stated, then logically you cannot assume.what they are. Glad all was well on the actual health front, though.

We had 3 orchids at this time last year (marsh, not bee). No sign so far this year.

Well done @Britinme on pronoun-fightback and health!

Bee non-orchid news: I got stung by one last night, while sitting on the sofa watching TV. I just felt something tickling the back of my leg, reached down to brush it off and OW! I saw the mortally wounded culprit staggering off across the carpet as I flicked the sting out of my leg.

ouchy

I've been having my annual bedroom full of bees event - Can eggs or larvae lie dormant in walls for several years? It would explain the way I get a day when suddenly, mid-afternoon, there are bees everywhere. A few years ago it was hundreds of them for nearly a week, last year just a few score for two or three days, this year dozens between 3.00 and 7.00 on two successive afternoons.

Rather purposeless, which adds to my suspicion they are orphans with no queen and no home. I still don't want to get stung or have to nurse a cat whose squeaky toy has given them a nasty surprise.

So lots of glass, card, and drop out of window action, but I did get to sleep in my own bed rather than having to move to another room as on previous years.

Elderberry, it may be one of a few of reasons. There may be a new colony nearby, in which case the bees are still orienting themselves to their new environment. The other reason could be that, since bees play a number of roles throughout their lives, these bees have just taken on the role of food collectors and are still figuring out where they are. Or maybe you've a colony in the walls of your house. I've seen that, they'd built in the gaps in a house wall and honey ended up seeping out of the wall on the inside.

We've got a 'bee tree' in the garden where swarms regularly stop off at this time of year, five one year. If they hang around for a couple of days, they often end up in the house.

They had a set up in the wall of the house a few years ago - moved in as an organised swarm, and crawled around and over their queen for a while before they found a spot that suited them. Once established they flew in and out happily - very occasionally one came into the house. They didn't survive that winter, but since then there's been this 'emergence' each summer - it terrified me the first time it happened, the room filled with bees. I listened in the garden for the sound of a swarm anywhere, but couldn't locate one.

That sounds really interesting. I used to help collect swarms regularly, and still do from time to time. It was often the case that, once settled, the swarm would go quiet enough that you wouldn't know they were there.

We set up a swarm catcher in the bee tree here. Mr Veg made it and it was pretty robust, made out of wood. He hadn't quite done the finishing touches when we went away for a couple of days and when we got home a swarm had moved in and sealed up all the gaps. We left them to it and they survived a few years before succumbing last winter. Once we realised they'd gone, we planned to take it down but an early swarm moved in and are still there.

Did you get any honey out of the arrangement, @Vegemiteandhoneyontoast ?

Unfortunately not! We did end up with a couple of colonies, though, courtesy of the tree in the garden.

I got honey! My friend with the orchids had an almost-full frame on her kitchen table when we went in for a cup of tea. When I admired it she insisted I take it. She had told a local beekeeper about a wild swarm in her garden and this was a thank-you. She said no-one else in the family ate it and she didn't feel she needed any more.

So I have a completely undeserved box full of honeycomb in the freezer, a jar half-full of the honey from the bits I couldn't fit, and a couple of discs of lovely beeswax - I warmed the trimmings over a very gently simmering pan of water, and strained it.

I'll take it all out and clean and sieve it in the next couple of weeks, and should be able to give my friend back a rather more manageable jar.

The odd drops and drips that I tasted during the job were lovely.

Oh that sounds lovely! Beautiful honey-scented beeswax!

I love bee orchids!

How lovely of your friend to give you the frame of honey, it must taste and smell divine.

I've just been given 2.5lb of freshly picked blackcurrants from someone on Freecycle and she said there are loads more to come. They're very juicy and intensely blackcurranty. I said that once our apples ripen I'll take her some.

I spent my whole childhood thinking I hated honey and it was all because of the smell which I still find a little offputting but at some point as an adult I tasted it and was "Oh my giddy aunt, this stuff is lush!" But to this day I haven't eaten/tasted honeycomb, well apart from the sort of "honeycomb" you get in a, bum forgotten the name of the chocolate bar, or something like that, cooked stuff. I'm not against trying it, it's just never happened. It always looks lovely when I see people noshing on it on the telly.

It was really lovely, and unexpected - m y friend is in the last weeks of writing up a thesis and I suspect is at the stage that any extra thing to do, like coping with large quantities of honeycomb, is just too much.

I'll make sure she gets honey back.

@MouseMinge ... well apart from the sort of "honeycomb" you get in a, bum forgotten the name of the chocolate bar

Crunchie! You utter beast, MM, now I want one.

Crunchie! So do I, @Gonners I wouldn't be able to swallow it but it doesn't stop me wanting one.

Crunchies are delicious. I really want one now!

We were canvassed by the Labour candidate's team this evening: I said I was "undecided", but they mentioned that the candidate herself was just down the road. So I went and hung about until she was free.

I live in a new constituency, bang next-door to Rosie Duffield's seat, so I kicked off ever-so-gently with "Rosie Duffield - up or down with that sort of treatment by your party leader? I speak as a hateful TERF!" Greatly to her credit, she laughed and said that TERF was a ludicrous term, that as far as she was concerned the whole business was purely a matter of protection of women's rights and safeguarding and that Keir needed to "do better, as they like to say" - said with a grin and air quotes. She was also quite interesting, as a deputy head in a "special needs" school, autistic herself and with an autistic son, on the correlation between "gender identity" in children and autism.

She really engaged with me and it's a very close race here after 40 years of the same (dim and pointless, if mostly harmless) Tory MP, but I think it's going to boil down to how I feel on the day. Sir Bloody Keir but a potentially bolshie woman, or a spoiled ballot?

I'd vote for her. We need more people who think like her on the inside of the Labour party.

On another thread, there was some slight criticism of Kathleen Stock and Julie Bindel, both saying, in effect, that they'd hold their noses and vote Labour. But I think it's got to the point where it's hard to criticise anyone for voting any which way, or, indeed, spoiling. If KS and JB think they'd rather be in the tent pissing out, than outside pissing in, and others come to a different conclusion, well, fair enough. It's all such a mess.

Judging by the wild applause for the very impressive and TERF Labour candidate at the hustings last night, and tepid applause for the Tory, there's going to be a huge swing away from the Tories here. The LibDem and Green candidates were also quite impressive which will split the vote, but hopefully not enough to let in the Conservative. We used to be such a safe Conservative seat.

Loving the bees stories. There are bee orchids in the hills near here, so we may go on the walk at the weekend to see if we can see any.

This exactly! The various types of vote-scolding going on all over the boards are really annoying me. It's all shit and people are going to deal with the shit in a variety of ways.

I'm just rolling my eyes because a couple of days ago, https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/ was predicting the "chances of winning" locally at 55% Con, 45% Lab. Today it's 90% Con, 5% Lab, 5% Reform.

Meanwhile in Islington, they're now predicting that Jeremy Corbyn will get 36.5% of the vote with a 33% chance of winning, while Labour will get 33.1% of the vote with a 55% chance of winning. Someone has broken something, I fear. Can it be coincidence that Julian Assange has been released? 🤔

When I moved to NI I had 2 voting rules: no sectarian parties, no anti-aborton parties.

Now abortion has been agreed here it seems to have dropped off everyone's manifestos. No sectarians only leaves Greens and the LibDem equivalents - who both have similar gender woo views to their mainland brethren (or an independent whose only policy is 'repeal the smoking ban').

So I think I may end up holding my nose and going for the only vaguely sane candidate despite his border position. He's a bit old-school-Tory-wet, but some decent ideas about increasing support for carers and diaabled people, and the bit on immigration starts with the important contribution made by immigrants and the need to speed up the process for refugees, rather than a sink-the-boats stance.

Hm - 'sectarian' and 'nationalist' are not synonyms. I'd like to say neither are 'unionist' and 'sectarian', but there will inevitably be members of one or other order or brotherhood in there who do have a sectarian agenda - less so in the UUP.

I do sympathise with everyone though, I found it hard enough to decide what to do in the Euro elections, and at least I could transfer my vote (27 times). I can't quite get my head around only having one option.

I thought Kuc's wording on the spoiled vote was brilliant - hope it gets seen by the people who need to get the message.

And in other news from Ireland, confirmed cases of Covid last week were 60% higher than the week before. My pals on the garden trip were trailblazers (another pal who didn't go on the trip is now down with it).