Soup Break: Bee Bonanza

As you may have guessed, I've been on holiday for the last fortnight and out of the country. Fear not, though, for I have had been on bee alert. En route through South Wales I called into my relatives' family honey farm, where I bought a few jars of honey and honey marmalade. The younger offspring tried the honey icecream (delicious) and I bought a packet of honey fudge. It has a very distinctive taste, and is made using honey and oil rather than sugar and butter. Not bad.

From the honey farm we went on to the National Botanic Garden of Wales at Llanarthne. There is a small section of the garden where beehives are kept. You can view the bees safely from behind perspex windows.

Bee Garden, National Botanic Garden, Wales

Hives in the Bee Garden, National Botanic Garden, Wales

Bee on Echinacea, National Botanic Garden, Wales

We just spent a couple of hours at the Botanic Garden, then headed on to Devon to stay with in-laws. While there, we were treated to several courgette-based meals. Thanks to the Riverford Farm Cook Book, we even had a chocolate courgette cake! It was surprisingly good and if you didn't know there were courgettes in the cake, you would never have guessed.

From Devon we travelled to Cornwall, visiting the Eden Project. I have wanted to visit the project for years, so another goal has been achieved.

Bee Box at the Eden Project

Bee-friendly garden at the Eden Project

Giant bee in the bee-friendly garden, Eden Project, Cornwall

From the Eden Project we went to Marazion, where we stayed with "Kay-Bee", an old friend. There were a couple of bee-spots there, too.

Bee bottle tops at Kay-Bee's

Bee box in Kay-Bee's kitchen

Bee box in Kay-Bee's garden

Then it was time to travel east to Norfolk where we stayed at my sister Jay-Zo's place.

Jay-Zo's bee box

British Beekeepers' Association badge

There was no avoiding bees during my holiday. Even my reading material was swarming with bee and honey references. While re-reading Colum McCann's Let the Great World Spin, I came across the following: 

• · "What Corrigan wanted was a fully believable God, one you could find in the grime of the everyday... He wasn't interested in the glorious tales of the afterlife or the notions of a honey-soaked heaven." (In All Respects to Heaven, I Like It Here)
• · Claire [talking about her husband Solomon in Miro, Miro, on the Wall] "He calls me his little honeybee sometimes. It started from an argument when he called me a WASP."

Then, in Sebastian Barry's On Canaan's Side, Mr Eugenides offers the narrator Lily Bere some honey: 

"... I have nothing to give you but this, which is the honey of my father's village."
And he pointed, he more or less introduced me, to a little pot, humble and plain enough, with a very austere white label,and a big yellow bee on it, and some Greek writing. ...
Now I sit at my table, and today there is not just tea and milk in my cup, but also a spoon of Greek honey.

And in Henning Mankell's Italian Shoes: 

It seemed to me that Harriet had told Louise the facts. Or at least as much of the facts as she could, without telling a lie. I had gone to America, and I had vanished. And in my youth I'd been interested in bees.

I also came across an advert for Alison Benjamin and Brian McCallum's new book, Bees in the City: The Urban Beekeeper's Handbook. And yesterday I read this article (Stripe-suited workers create a new buzz at stock exchange) about the installation of beehives on London rooftops. Bee is for busy. Goodnight all.