The bees are settling in and the garden has taken off.

Another 'four seasons in one day' kind of a day today. A dentist appointment saw me up early and out the door, Sam wasn't feeling too well so he took the day off work and accompanied me. After the appointment we went over to get some money out from the machine in the mall and by the time we got back outside it was pouring with rain. It rained all the way home and when we pulled onto Hunua Road I saw a little chaffinch in middle of the road, alive so Sam had to turn the car around so I could pick it up. It clutched my finger with its left foot but the right foot was tucked up and in a fist. Its beak was closed, it breathed normally and seemed phased but nothing else. As we drove it sat in my cupped hand and didn't move or make a peep. Once home we called in to see our neighbours and finch came in too. By this time Sam had taken over cuddle duty and it looked tiny in Sam's big hand. After about an hour it fluttered out of Sam's hand and onto the neighbour's wire fruit bowl where it sat happily. Sensing that it was ready to go, Sam picked it up, it didn't object. He took it outside and released it, it flew with vigor over the gorse bushes and into the sky which had cleared up.

We went home and pottered around with the animals for a while, I waited for the wind to die down and then we cracked open the hive so that I could again look for the queen bee and also check on their progress.

There was a lot of activity in there. The hive mat was adorned with scattered clusters of wax so I scraped that off first and stuck it in a jar. Next I smoked the bees and started at the quietest end of the hive. On the left were the three 3/4 depth frames that seemed to have the most activity on the right were my full depth frames with not much activity. I removed one completely so that I could work easily on the frames without squashing any bees. The first three new full depth frames had small sections of drawn out wax, they had been busy. By the time I got to the seventh frame there were already cells being filled with honey and others with pollen, fantastic. I thought I saw the queen on the third frame but it may have just been a drone amongst workers. I took a photo but then when I got to the first frame I saw another few that similar to what I thought was my queen so I felt a pang of disappointment, I'll look over the photos and compare it to the beekeeping bible.

After that I was feeling a bit peckish so I collected 11 eggs from the coop and raided my vege garden. Lucifer and Mabel helped me and were very happy to be given a broccoli plant that was going to seed. The potatoes have shot up, I need to add another tyre and some more manure to the pile. The spearmint needs picking and drying for tea, my stores are empty of tea now so I'm drinking store bought blends at the moment, missing my home made tea like crazy. I picked broad beans, kale, sage, parsley and coriander. We bought a yummy loaf of foccacia bread from the market this morning and we toasted slices of it on the cast iron skillet, I used the broad beans to make a dip to go with the bread. Broad beans are delicious, they're easy to grow like most beans. They are wrapped in a waxy pod, when you break through that you find a fluffy duvet-like inner that the beans nestle in wearing a leather jacket protecting a sweet, bright green inner.

Broad Bean Dip
1/2 cup of fresh broad beans, removed from the pod, leather jacket left in tact. 
Pinch of salt
1 cup of water
2 cloves of garlic
Cracked pepper to taste
2 fresh mint tips
1 small handful of parsley
2 sage tips
Olive oil
2 tablespoons greek yoghurt

Boil beans and two whole cloves of garlic in salted water until tender and some of the beans start to shed their leather jackets. Drain and rinse with cold water. Transfer beans and garlic to a blender, add cracked pepper and herbs and cracked pepper to taste. Add olive oil as needed to ensure a fine blend. Finally add the yogurt, blitz quickly to combine and serve with crusty bread or toasted foccacia.