I’ve been busy revising for my As Exams, hence the complete lack
of posts. I’m now trying not to think about them, because I know I tried my
best and nothing I can do now will change the results.
Anyway! Shortly before my exams all of the school officer posts
were up for grabs. This means that Head Boy, the various house captains, and
subject coordinator applicants all went through an interview process and the
officers were chosen.
The interesting this about this was that the only subject
coordinator posts available were numeracy, literacy and anti-bullying. There were
also no rules about making up your own posts, so I applied for science
coordinator. I feel that too many students struggle initially with science and
as a result find it boring, and I wanted to change that. However, it emerged
that several others went for the post of science coordinator as well, which was
certainly a shock to me, given that I’d made up that post!
The end result was that I didn’t get the post, which I have to
admit, was disappointing for me. However, I approached the two students who had
got it, and persuaded them to support me when I implemented my own ideas, so
that even though I wasn’t coordinator, I could still try to get my activities
in place.
The following weekend I was asked by my dad to “do the bees”. This
is entails nothing more than an inspection of the hives we have at the bottom
of the garden, but it would be the first time I had done them without him. So I
suited up, and went down to check on them. Due to the wet weather, the bees hadn’t
been flying as much as they should have, and weren’t able to collect the nectar
and pollen for the honey and had no food. I recognised this, and the causes,
and mixed up a batch of sugar syrup to help feed them through the rainy
periods. In one hive I was pleased to find the queen bee, who, despite being
almost double the size of the others, is fairly difficult to spot amongst the
5000 others.
The third hive I looked in was a swarm (when a bee hive splits),
and so had fewer bees. I looked in to the frames which, in the other hives had
had brood (baby bees) and could find none. Also with so few bees in the hive I
was also struggling to find the queen. Her absence and the absence of brood
lead me to believe that actually, the hive had lost its queen (a hive almost
certainly dies when this happens). When my dad checked the bees a week later,
he agreed with all of my suggestions. I was pleased because I’d thought
objectively and worked through any problems. We aren’t sure what to do with the
swarm, but we’re going to leave it for now.
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| A queen bee |
