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Day 4: Putting things in perspective

By Judith Batchelar, Sainsbury's

5 June 2015

Judith is one of nine senior women from the UK food industry taking part in Farm Africa's Big Beehive Build.

Mosquito bites - still at 3, Gin and Tonics - didn't overindulge (5 am start in the morning need all my faculties working), embarrassing and noisy toilet moments - 0, bee stings - 0, blisters - 2, beehives built - 90, Beehives painted - 90

WE DID IT! 90 BEEHIVES IN 3 DAYS BUILT BY 9 WOMEN

BIG thanks to the team, the diggers from 2 years ago who survived that and came back for more: Rachel Griffiths from Moy Park, Ann Savage from Bakkavor, Susie McIntyre from Kettle Foods and Lorraine Hendle from The Grocer. Also a big thanks to our new team members Marnie Millard from Nichols Group, Viv Harris from ABP, Kate Ewart from Tesco and April Preston from 2Sisters Food group, all of whom will definitely coming on the next challenge. Last but certainly not least, a big thank you to Penny Ruszczynski at Farm Africa who organised the whole thing brilliantly including us (no easy task)!

It was a very special day and one that all of us will remember for the rest of our lives. We finished the beehives and then went back and made all the bits that were missing in the ones we had already " finished". That was a long, fiddly and frustrating job and I have to say I have seen enough of beehive frames, wiring them and cutting the beeswax  (which acts as an attractant) to last more than a lifetime! Our finished beehives

Then the painting and the stencilling, that's the easy part... or so we all thought? Didn't we all do that at school? Well it's not so easy... too much paint and it just blotches (so we didn't put those at the front of the photo !), however they all looked beautiful en masse and the whole village and local community turned out to see us officially hand over the hives to the government officials from Babati.

It was a very formal affair with lots of protocol and an hour and a half of speeches, including a short one from me, which slightly faltered when we couldn't translate " field to fork" into Swahili, so we settled for " field to plate ". Afterwards we had songs and dances and a feast, which the ladies of the community had worked hard to prepare for us with some very fresh chicken which we had seen running around earlier!

We exchanged gifts (including Tu clothing for them and sesame honey cake for us) and then took the hives into their resting place in the forest. What an unbelievable experience and privilege for all of us and one that puts everything into perspective.

Fresh chicken When I left England I was worried about all sorts of things, including missing the Aviva Premiership final and England v The Barbarians ...doesn't seem that important now in the scheme of things. I know it sounds clichéd but its true.

And ... yes you've guessed it, Jonathan got stung again! I've come to the conclusion that he has his own special brand of pheromone bee attractant, as he is the only one who has been stung. Anyway, I think that last batch of stings was the last straw (and he's practically comatose with anti histamines), so today he's looking at sesame...altogether a safer crop (or so we think ... I shall wait to see !)

On reflection, a few things we could have done better: more sponsorship, more prework if we'd practised our technique in the UK (we could have built twice as many!), better tools (blunt wire cutters are quite painful to use!), and so on, but of course all of the above were part of the challenge.

The biggest lesson for me though is, that you don't know what your capable of until you try, and you definitely have to have blind faith to commit to something when you've no idea what you're doing, sometimes you just have to "go with it ". And finally, what is a small gesture for us can make a huge difference to others.

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