FOOD & DRINK

Carina Contini on how bees brought her husband to his knees, plus Rose Murray Brown picks her favourite French classics

If you follow us on social media, you’ll have seen my husband Victor saving the planet. Well, saving his bees to be precise. Unfortunately, Victor’s native black bees didn’t survive the winter in our kitchen garden. Recent research is highlighting that some of the treatments used to protect bees from the mite that is ravaging their population may be doing more harm than good. Victor treated our kitchen garden bees, but not the hives we have at the Scottish Gallery of Modern Art. The good news is those bees are thriving and have produced some beautiful honey. There isn’t much but there is enough to tease our tastebuds. Proof perhaps that nature knows best.

However, last week we hit a problem when we got a message saying the bees had started to swarm. So Victor went to the rescue with the help of his new best friend, the bee professor. Two hours later I got a phone call: please bring two plastic tubs and lunch. In the middle of a natural world crisis, trust my husband to still be thinking of his stomach. I appeared with the tubs (but no lunch) to find Victor in control, using my best tablecloth that had been destined for the dry cleaners acting as the bee blanket. The swarm had split in two; one in the blanket and one up the tree. Credit to my husband he did manage to catch both, parcel them into the plastic tubs then drive, still fully suited, and wearing several bees, to place them in an empty hive we had in our kitchen garden. Result. To celebrate? A dish filled with good things from the garden and another using the sweet honey goodness from our beautiful bees.

Crespelle, main; strawberry, honey and Pickering’s Gin syllabub, opposite bottom