What a great week I have had. Two talks at schools and one at Amersham Museum.

The first school talk was at Lee Common School. It reminded me of the school I went to when I was a child, Stag Lane in Chorleywood, which at the time was only one building with about 40 pupils! Yes, that really is how old I am! Lee Common is bigger but still has the original building charm about it. I gave a talk to Years 1, 2 and 3. They were very young but very receptive. I did not get any unanswerable questions from anyone but instead an unfathomable answer.

Q “How many flowers do you think honeybees have to visit to make a single jar of honey?

A “100 elephants”

Q “100 elephants?”

A “Yes 100 elephants!”

So there you have it, it takes 100 elephants to make a single jar of honey. Who knew?

The next school I went to was Ivingswood Academy in Chesham. Again this was Year 1. Very young, but I tailored my talk to their age and they were lovely. And I have to say when I asked them what they had thought they had learned from my chat with them they said, almost in unison “how important the honeybee is.” Boom!

The other place I went to this week was Amersham Museum. This time the talk was for adults. In amongst the audience was a very knowledgable gentleman who knew the answers to all the questions I throw out during the course of my talk, but he didn’t answer until other people had had a go and if they got it wrong I deferred to him as I knew he knew all the answers. When I had finished my talk I asked him if he was a beekeeper. “Yes..”” he replied.. “I am also on the committee of the BBKA (The British Beekeepers Association). Well all I can say is… I was jolly pleased he didn’t tell me that at the start of my talk. I asked him if I had passed muster to which he said “You most certainly did” and bought a book. Phew to that!

For the first time this week I have been receiving requests for my going to give talks which has been lovely. Opening up my emails to find someone asking me rather than responding to my request has been really uplifting - three of those requests were from Beaver Scout Groups. I hadn’t thought of approaching this group of people so I will be beavering away next week looking in to contacting more of this sort of group.

So it’s “dyb dyb dyb - dob dob dob” from me.. which mean’s “do your best - do our best”