Yesterday I walked to get the paper for my husband whose leg is causing real problems at the moment.  I walk from the house, along a footpath behind houses with a field on the other side and emerge into a narrow village road.  The footpath itself has honesty, may blossom and dandelions so paths are good sources of forage as well as leisure space for ramblers. The houses are modest often with small front gardens – yet a high percentage have been made ‘maintenance free’ either so cars can be parked or a line of rainbow coloured wheelie bins but more often replaced by a patch of pebbles sometimes with a pot or two with some greenery.  The most long term resident in our own rural lane declared the first time that someone replaced a hedge with a fence or wall that she thought this was the beginning of the end – indeed she believed it should not be allowed.  Certainly we have seen more removal of hedges since then and the excessive school traffic vehicles  (Chelsea tractors are much wider than normal cars and in our lane their drivers flatten the verges when one meets another or a school bus) causing the hedges to suffer in all sorts of ways.  Some of the hedging plants are flattened and killed and the soil is so compacted that rain drains off rather than seep in so the hedges get thinner and thinner dying from thirst.  I am not sure whether the school puts pressure on the farmer to cut the hedges but they seem to be cut more frequently and more harshly.  I think there are guidelines that hedges should not be cut more frequently than once every 2 years and not when birds are beginning to build nests but I am pretty sure both these guidelines have been broken.

In contrast I was pleased to receive an invitation to this even from organic fruit and veg company Abel & Cole.  They have called their event ‘A Bigger Buzz’  and they are highlighting ways they have tried to reverse some of the problems.  We certainly need actions such as these and we can each do our bit.  We can leave one area to grow a little more wild with dandelions, wild honeysuckle, foxgloves and brambles allowed to discreetly invade.  We can consider some pollinator friendly planting.  And where possible we can enjoy our hedges and front gardens.   A little lavender hedge can act as a marker to our boundary and provide a great bee environment without needing the attention of a full hedge.  Look for bee friendly alternatives if you do feel the need to make changes to your own little haven.  Alliums and herbs provide good forage.  Herbs can also be used in the kitchen so can earn their keep and alliums are bulbs so that they come up year after year without needing too much care.

I’d like them to create a blog about their adventures.

I decided to wear my newish – and as yet unworn – Bee basic all in one.  I even stuffed some extra kitchen towels into my boots where I thought there could be a hole that could attract the enemy.   the new Bee Suit, by the way, has evolved a little since my last one and after Emily’s suggestion that the end of the long front zip was a weak spot I was delighted to see that this new one does a really secure fastening.  I also liked the adjustable bands on top of the gathering at the wrists and the zips at the ankle have been repositioned to the outside – much, much better.  I do recommend Bee Basic – they do so much so well. I have found that a smoker isn’t always a good idea and had been relying more on water spray.  I had hesitated last time thinking water spray -> moisture which is supposedly worse that cold for bees.  Nevertheless they do need moisture to use their fondant.  I got everything ready and took a deep breath.  My remaining 2 hives included a colony I had from Scott of HWBKA which he said were gentle so I thought I’d tackle them first.  Both of these last 2 hives also have glass crown boards/quilts and with a carton of fondant covering the porter bee escape hole.

I opened the hive with trepidation.  Like the colony that attacked me a couple of days ago there seemed more bees than I expected.  There is something really magical about the gentle overflow /eruption of a mass of black bees – like milk boiling over without the mess after.  The Thornes applicator with which I had practised in the kitchen with water and had another experience with the first hive really does work incredibly well and reduces the time to ‘recharge’ for the next seam of bees so the operation was completed before the bees really started to object.  They’d still got sufficient fondant.

On to the 3rd hive which was weak going into winter.  Fewer bees – still a weak colony.  they had almost finished their fondant so again a quick treatment of just 4 seams and a replacement of the fondant container was done quickly.  It was about 3 pm and fairly warm.

So, I mastered my fear, completed the task and knew that to date I had two really strong colonies coming towards the new season.  This allows me to decide some of what I will do at the beginning of the season.  I need to get some equipment back to Scott so I may do a shook swarm on the vigorous fairly new colony.  I’d like to do the same on the weak colony but perhaps I might need to rethink that a little as it may need more support.  I am certainly impressed with Scott’s bees and may consider buying another colony from him.

So I have treated just after a cold spell (hopefully a good thing) and we should have a couple of fairly warm and sunny days to help them recover.  I just need to check what I need to do to responsibly dispose of the excess diluted oxalic.

I think I was lucky to get away with just one sting.  My other two hives will have to wait a day or so.  My ear was the location of the sting.  It could have been much worse.  I really don’t know how they got in so I need to check for holes.

I can truthfully say that I wasn’t hungry – in fact I think I ate more than usual and it seemed full of variety possibly because others on the detox were so good at sharing recipes and because some things were out of bounds, it was necessary to learn some new things.  I think most family cooks must get into menu ruts so mine had to be rethought.

I think the only negative was the withdrawal to caffeine headaches.  However, the fact they were bad really emphasised the effects of caffeine.  I remembered a set of pictures I saw years ago – the effects on spiders webs when spiders were exposed to various drugs including caffeine.  In essence, the webs were useless when they’d had caffeine though less so on what we would consider worse drugs.  See

So – how does the group work.  Yes there is a charge – between £30 – 40;  there is an early bird discount to bring the cost down to the lower figure.  What do you get?  A set of guidelines with recipes and suggestions and ongoing support and advice primarily from Danni who runs the group but then from the other group members.  There is also a 10 minute exercise video – changing each day and designed to complement the food regime.  In fact I quickly changed down to a sequence that works for me from past experience – I am afraid I was a much worse case than many in the group, and much older.  After the fortnight, there is a confession corner where we can keep up the group mentoring for which there is no charge.  All the resources are in a private facebook group.   I have lost about a stone in just over 3 weeks.  I lost 11lbs during the fatburner fortnight and the rest is a steady progression from keeping many of the guidelines post that first fortnight.  I haven’t felt hungry and I haven’t craved sweet things or things that are on the forbidden list.  After the initial fortnight, you can choose which items to introduce and then assess their impact though you can also pay for a sort of phase 2 which means you are mentored through that stage with additional resources.  You continue to have access to the exercise videos as long as you want with no charge.  For more info

So – what about abulia?  I am trying to get ready for my appearance as a contestant on Countdown so I am trying to increase my vocabulary.  Abulia is a word that means ‘lack of will power’ – and I certainly used to think mine was weak.  The detox made me wonder whether it was as weak as I thought – but perhaps it relates to the fact that I don’t feel hungry and indeed am enjoying my food more.

   I was told about her colour scheme and set about finding fabrics and realised in my stash were 2 fabrics I had purchased when with her Mum.  I used a pattern from Beth Ann Williams colourwash Bargello quilts, called cascade.

The striped material is part of the design the couple had chosen for the nursery and it also involved motifs of a bee and a ?hedgehog  with the blue, orange and gold that I managed to pick out from my fabric stash.

One of the tips my sister gave me was to hang the fabrics being considered over the banister.  as you go up and down stairs you glance at them, half subconsciously, but in those moments you often tweak the selection and improve the flow of colours.  Having some definite colours separated by more subdued colours is what will help the pattern to come out.  however, the size of the patterns and small colour links between them are also important.  It is also satisfying if some of the fabrics have some link to the intended recipient.  My current project is another cot quilt for a grandchild.  It will have to sleep in its parents room and I don’t know the gender.  The mother quite likes green – though other colours as well.  I was reminded of a room I stayed in with a colour scheme of navy, white and a crisp emerald green.

Here are fabrics I am thinking about including. Some of the fabrics relate to other quilts or projects made for other grandchildren.  Others I have found relate to family traits or history.  There is one with green teacups on.  (My father swears when his blood was tested when he enlisted for WW2 they wrote down Typhoo rather than type o)  Another has a navy pattern showing part of a London map.  A third is full of digits (there are mathematicians in the family).

I have amended my sister’s idea a little.  The fabric kept slipping off the shiny banister so I have used some plastic coat hangers with a slightly grippy cross bar.

Not sure whether this indicates a strange turn of mind but found this in Honey Bee suite’s blog very intriguing.  Hadn’t heard of Wikimedia before – what a sensible idea.  I thought it was a misprint for Wikipedia at first.  It is a video of a bumble bee defecating but even this is amazing to be caught on film.

I am not sure whether this is completely inappropriate for a beekeeper – or symbolic that the bees don’t fly much in winter.

Once I got to the site I was in turn Very Impressed and Very Confused.  There is so much that is good on this site it is almost a delight at every turn.  Names of past competitors  can be seen in the chat room and referenced with wit in the items you find as you complete games and in the name of the many imaginative variations of play.  However,  even as a confident user of computers, there were a few things about the site and the navigation that bemused and befuddled.  I tried to choose the option ‘spectate’ so I could see others playing the game but nothing seemed to happen.  (I wonder later whether my machine was too slow, I was too impatient or a window had been hidden).  I managed to find the solo games and aim for some stars on the first path – but the yet to be played stars are so pale on my computer that I was trying to click a yellow one I had managed to stumble through and wondering why nothing happened there.  It was frustrating that fumbly fingers and nervousness meant I couldn’t click to explain my method to succeed with the numbers and lost all points despite knowing how to do it.  Yet I have become addicted and am frequently delighted by the wit and variation within the site.   So – how to help others come to appreciate the delights of this site?

I have created a little guide in pdf format which I will try to upload here.  I have also created a little video of the nub of the site – playing games.  It is on youtube I haven’t speeded it up though I have cut some of the later letter rounds purely because some people might like to experience the speed at which it works.  There are variants of games with a longer time for each round and others which are very much faster.  The guide is here Apterous guide

Using the spirograph is just one way some of the power of pattern can be explored in a way that at first sight, seems to have nothing to do with maths.  I think we are all familiar with the concept – a game with wheels and open circles, all toothed so one can move round inside or outside another to create magical looking patterns.  When children play with these, sometimes they may get really disappointing designs looking more like an aeroplane propeller than the intricate firework explosions of the more appealing designs.  With just a little prompting and consideration of the number of teeth on the pieces used, it doesn’t take too long for many to realise that numbers which are relatively prime give the more intricate patterns.

This sort of thing could be introduced at various ages.  For example I could see that a good project/investigation aimed at GCSE level would be possible.  Equally it could be used in primary school.  At about age 8/9 it could be a gifted and talented project (and be linked with curve stitching or envelopes of curves).  By age 10/11  with a little planning it could be used in mainstream, larger groups.

After my Countdown audition we dropped into an exhibition in the Wellcome building nearby.  Their shop seems to be run by Blackwells and I spotted a pack that seemed to have identified the scope of these spirals and I couldn’t resist seeing what they had done.  It is attractively packaged – a few spirograph pieces plus a small booklet.  The booklet would possibly not appeal to many children but could help a teacher who wanted to make some activities.  I think I would have liked to see some worksheets or suggested tasks and I may even try to make some myself.

Many years ago, there was a program called Spirals we used to run on BBC computers.  It created the spirograph drawings on screen once the user had chosen which pieces they wanted to use and allows students to extract the patterns and underlying maths without being troubled with the mechanics of slipping pens or hands.  How well we used that software and I’ve never seen similar for the PC.  There are some websites with a few of the same characteristics.

You can experiment here or here

An online spirograph using Java.  I will try to add the code to embed it here.

Each link will give rise to sites where you might find other interesting maths games and ideas.  Curve stitching is a little like a spirograph – it allows us to create curves by enclosing an area between straight lines.  It is a nice way to create a cardiod – perhaps an interesting task nearing valentine’s day?  I really think such investigations can awake a child’s mathematical curiosity which is perhaps almost as important as success in manipulating number if we want young mathematicians.  These sorts of experiments could be managed as easily in a home educator’s environment as in a classroom or an after school maths club.

<applet codebase="http://wordsmith.org/anu/java/" archive="Spiro.jar" code="Spiro.class" width=680 height=400>
<param name="R" VALUE="81">
<param name="smallr" VALUE="2">
<param name="O" VALUE="71">
<param name="movingCircleOut" VALUE="false">
<param name="redBits" VALUE="242">
<param name="greenBits" VALUE="255">
<param name="blueBits" VALUE="139">
<param name="colorMode" VALUE="multi">
</applet>
<br>
Created by <A HREF="http://wordsmith.org/anu/">Anu </A>
<a href="http://wordsmith.org/anu/">Garg</A>.
<p>

Created by Anu
Garg.