Friends, have you ever robbed a bank? Most of us have, haven't we, usually when we're young and "want to try everything at least once". Am I right? Or am I right!
Unfortunately bank-robbing is getting more complicated just like everything else in our crazy modern world. Did you see this cartoon in last week's Private Eye, the political magazine, which plopped through my letter-box a week or so ago?
Now even robbing banks is getting more difficult to arrange, would you believe!!! 
What a bunch of clowns! And another reason why, as people say, Basingstoke's dastardly "criminal community" has a ways to go before becoming truly world class "baddies".
As you can see it, we're currently leaving our bee colony garden "wilded", with some attractive grasses and weeds where the bees can take time out, stop, enjoy nature, and contemplate: they need a well-earned break sometimes, we reason, from their otherwise short but busy little bee-lives.
[Not me, I'm still in the loo! - Ed]
[Is nothing sacred!!!! Yikes!!!! - Ed]
That's a pity because Lois and I were thinking of driving our own bees down to Bournemouth next week, to give them a proper break, and a breath of sea air into the bargain.
And if you've tried to rob a bank recently, you'll know what I mean, when I say the most difficult part of all is assembling your optimum "heist crew" to cover all eventualities. There was a story about it in today's Onion News, I expect you saw it?
And now, my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois and I fear for the whole outcome of this heist, to put it mildly! In a related article, the gang has announced a firm date now for their heist, and it isn't till next week - Tuesday I think, they're saying, so we'll just have to stay "on tenterhooks", or "on pins" as my dear late mother used to say, to see whether the heist is successful or not. But fear not, it'll all be reported in my blog, so watch this space!
more details on page 94, if you want "chapter and verse" !!!
Plus, Moerdenson is obviously "up to his eyes in it", as my dear late mother also used to say (!), so Lois and I haven't been ringing him.
This is despite the fact that we could really do with a killer bee expert right now, as it happens - just our luck!!!!!!!!
But why could you and Lois possibly want the professional opinion and services of a local "killer bee expert, Colin?", I hear you cry! [Not me, I've gone for a pee and a read of a "proper paper", thank you! - Ed]
Let me put my cards on the table at this point. Lois and I moved into our current home in rural semi-leafy Liphook, Hampshire just 4 months ago, and we've been trying to get our garden into shape, and we're both "hard at it" again today, to put it mildly!
my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois and me, "hard at it" again in the garden
[Couldn't you have made that 3rd picture, obviously "staged", of you leaning on a garden fork a bit more realistic, Colin? Just saying!!! - Ed]
By the way, did you spot the 5 bee-holes in that middle picture by the way? Bit of a giveaway isn't it! A couple of weeks ago, our new gardener, Mitchell, found the bee "nest", and since then, Lois and I have been assiduous in not disturbing the bees, but just "observing them from a distance" - we're planning to send local bee expert Moerdensen some stats in due course.
Lois "hard at it" this morning, careful not to
disturb the area we're calling our "bee garden"
with its un-landscaped grass and weeds, where
our bees can crawl around in safety and meditate etc
Lois is keeping count of the colony's entrance and exit holes (differentiated, like a supermarket's, maybe?) , three in total on Thursday, five today. We suppose that they're all linked by secret tunnels, a bit like World War II German prisoner-of-war camp Stalag Luft III, said to have so many allied escape tunnels underneath it that eventually the whole camp collapsed completely.
(left) a modern supermarket exit and entrance doors, and (right)
World War II German POW camp Stalag Luft III, rumoured to have had
so many allied tunnels dug under it that eventually it collapsed completely
For winter we're planning to erect a plastic "bee-o-dome" over this little garden-area, a bit like a miniature version of the "biodomes" in Cornwall at the Eden Project, so that our bees can exit and enter in relative comfort during the colder months.
We didn't see any miniature bee-o-domes in Luff's Garden Centre during our recent visit there, by the way. Just saying, in case anybody from Luff's is reading these words (!).
flashback to May 19th: Lois and I visit Luff's Garden Centre
but "strike out" when it comes to finding a suitable "bee-dome"
But "Why don't you try Rake's Garden Centre, just down the road from you, Colin?", I hear you cry!
You want to be careful about that, Ed, spending too long in the loo, I mean. Just saying!!
Earlier today, Steve, our American brother-in-law sent us this timely "shot across our bows" (!). from influential American website "El Adelantado":
Just saying!!!!
Really touching, we think. There's a long history of bee-keeping in Britain going back at least to the Celts. And they're even believed to be mini-doctors, because they are believed to damage the the cells of bacteria that they come across, which is a help, to put it mildly!
They're also quite intelligent - each has a million nerve cells in its tiny brain, not a lot compared to a human's 80 billion, but they're getting there aren't they. Their "waggle-dances" famously communicate to other bees the location of food: both distance and direction.
21:00 As new "custodians" of an important bee-colony here in Hampshire, we feel it's our duty to watch this week's Channel 5 documentary on the Secret Life of Bees.
Lois and I didn't know that people have been keeping bees for their honey for at least 10,000 years, and there are all sorts of weird traditions that have grown up around them, like telling them if some human they know has died, for instance.
And that's just one of the things that programme presenter Steve Backshall picks up today from King Charles's Royal Beekeeper, no less.
And Steve is here talking to the King's Royal Bee-keeper, so he obviously had to practise this ancient rite for real just recently.
Programme presenter Steve Backshall is even moved to start his own bee-collection, and gets advice tonight from local bee-keeper Lauren, who brings him a few "to start him off".
Back to the drawing board on that one, haha!!!
Will this do?
[Oh just go to bed! - Ed]
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzz!!!!!
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