Buying the hive

Forsythia in April, Spilimbergo.

19 April 2013

I see across the lake, which is not a real lake but one held up behind a dam that the cherry blossoms are in bloom, pale pink beside the forsythia, bright yellow. I consider painting them against the pale grey of the buildings in the background. It is a hard place to stop, the road winds around the lake with a rock wall on one side and a steep drop to the water on the other. I could come here on a bicycle. I cannot even stop to take a photograph.

We decide to buy dog food and tic repellent. I have just found an intrepid tic up high on my legs. After years of living in Jamaica, I am used to the feel of them and have learned to look before I scratch. At the Consorzio Agrario we see someone has drawn and coloured a bee and stuck it to some shelving. We ask if they have bee hives. The young man tells us he is specializing in bee-keeping equipment. He has only just begun, like us. I have already chosen my face mask. He only has two types and they are both square. I am quite pleased. How often can I legitimately dress up to look like a robot. I can't wait to get my white all in one suit.

Having already lost bees, we order the top half of the bee hive, where the honey hopefully will be stored and a queen excluder. Down the bottom the queen bee is supposed to lay her eggs and the workers and the drones and possibly future queen bees will be nurtured. It is all so early yet, but we feel that we need to hurry because already the cherry tree in our neighbour's tiny garden is dropping its blossoms. It looks like snow from where I stand in the middle of the garden.

I am a little worried because the intense buzzing I heard only a couple of days ago is fainter. I worry that someone has found their nest and killed them all thinking they are wasps. Roberto tells me off for drawing bad luck.

Later he tells me that bees bring good fortune. "What about the ones that flew away?" I ask him. He says, maybe they were not willingly given to him. These will be different. We will have paid a small fortune for two families and so they better stick around.

The bees we will buy are Carnica and  able to withstand the cold in the winter. Last year's bees obviously lived through the winter and I wonder where they holed up. I will not have time tomorrow to look for them. After more than six months of letting my hair grow wild I am being carted off to the hairdressers.

I had seen a haircut I admired at the bar we go into Maniago. When I say bar I am talking about drinking coffee and cappuccino. We confuse them because it is me who drinks the coffee and Roberto who wants the overheated cappuccino. At this bar they serve good brioche, slightly warm. There is a waitress there with the good haircut and she has told me where her hair cutter is.

It was difficult making an appointment because whoever answered the phone hung up on me whenever I started to speak. Roberto grabbed the phone from me. "You scare every one away with the way you talk to them," he says. "You are not talking to a deaf horse."

He speaks softly. This time the woman answers and he tells her I want to make an appointment. At first she seems to be allergic to my accent. "English". Then when she has made sure that I have never been there before I hear her cheer up. I tell her that I admired the haircut in the bar. "La mora?" she asks ... the dark one? Yes. I say, "I don't want a cut like hers, but I know it is a good cut." I am given an appointment for this Saturday.

"We'll talk about the hair cut," I'm told. 

On Monday we are to pick up the new bee hive. Hair and  hive, my life is changing at the speed of flight.