So, the colony has come through what turned out to be a mild winter and is getting itself ready for the Spring nectar flow. An inspection of the whole hive yesterday required quite a lot of patience on their part a swell as mine. Before lifting out each comb for a quick health inspection, I had to carefully and gently detach some of the comb edges from the inside walls. Not difficult but time consuming. Now that this has been done for the first time and the wax has matured and hardened over the winter so that it is now stornger and should no longer need these supporting attachments, it should be easier to pass through the hive in future. I'm fortunate in having a very calm colony, as naturally befits a Messengers of Peace project! I've allowed myself to harvest just a single honey comb and after crushing and straining this gave me 1.3 kg of honey to share with firiends and family as a taster.

I agree, there are few things that bring the same sense of calm as sitting next to my hive and watching these fascinating creatures coming and going as they gather pollen, nectar, propolis and water. Along with oxygen, the basic ingredients of their success. Really important then or us to protect and promote their sources of these.

During the relocation of the Geneva office of the World Scout Bureau, I chanced across the attached publication "Scouting in the Village - Beekeeping" in our archives and would like to share it here. It was published by the Africa Scout Region as one in a series issued as part of its International Youth Year Programme nearly thirty years ago. It only goes to show how, in yet another area of development, Scouting was way ahead of the general population and trends. I wish I had come across this leaflet sooner as it really does condense down into 8-pages the very basic essentials of keeping bees in top-bar hives, as relevant today as it was the day it was published. I hope you get as much pleasure from reading this as I had in re-discovering it's existence!

Six years on, our project continues and for the first time, we've managed to double the number of colonies we're caring for. Our existing colony came through the winter strongly and with near perfect seasonal conditions quickly expanded to the point that it was thriving and preparing for a new queen to replace its current queen that would depart with a swarm to establish a new colony elsewhere. We carried out a successful colony division using the simplest of "divide and walk away" techniques as part of a swarm control effort. This has resulted in the establishment of a new queen and colony in our second Kenyan top-bar hive. Despite our diligence, the first hive swarmed anyway in our absence, so our first hive has also raised its own new queen to replace the departed one. The departing swarm was seen by a neighbour heading off to establish a new home elsewhere after settling in a nearby garden for a few hours, so that means one colony has multiplied itself by three. Good result in a time when bees are struggling to survive in the world we've created for them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3bJK033fGw