What’s going on?

Renowned watercolour artist Lorette E. Roberts is holding a series of workshops and talks this month. The artist, who is known for her stunning sketchbooks of Hong Kong – including “Sketches of Sai Kung” – will cover working in watercolours, as well as a session dedicated to sketchbooks, scrapbooks, journals and travelogues. At the end of each session, participants will be invited to submit a piece of work for an exhibition planned for the end of the tour. A panel of judges will choose their favourite painting and the winning artist will be invited to enjoy a night at Hullett House, including breakfast.

The workshops are to be held from October 4-9 in Hullett House, Canton Road, Tsim Sha Tsui. For bookings, prices and details, please visit www.loretteroberts.com.

Hong Kong does many things well, but recycling waste is not one of them. Until now. HK Recycles is a new company founded by Brian Mak and husband-and-wife duo Mike and Mika Shum. For $20 a month, HK Recycles will collect glass, plastic, paper and other recyclables from the doorstep of registered households once a week.

Currently available only on Hong Kong Island, Mak plans to increase the scheme to Sai Kung and Clearwater Bay next year if enough homes register. Hong Kong produces more than six million tonnes of solid waste a year. At this rate, the city will need an additional 400 hectares of landfill sites just to make it to 2030. However, much of this waste is recyclable.

“Hong Kong will run out of landfill space by 2018,” Mak said. “Our goal is to recycle one million pounds [of waste] by the end of 2013, after 15 months of operation.”

To register for the service, please visit www.hkrecycles.com.

Leading Japanese street dance troupe, Wrecking Crew Orchestra, is bringing world-class hip hop to Sai Kung, with a performance at the Waterfront Park on November 11. Described by The Huffington Post as “mesmerising”, the dancers will wear hi-tech costumes that include electro-luminescent technology. The effect is like a scene from Tron. That should startle the Sunday-afternoon dog walkers. For details, call the LCSD Entertainment Office at 2591 1340, or visit www.lcsd.gov.hk/eo.

Hello, ni hao. A new bilingual pre-school opened last month in Floral Villas, Sai Kung, in the premises formerly used by New Song. Adeona International Kindergarten offers a dual-language – Mandarin and English – play-based teaching approach designed to make learning both natural and fun. The nursery school (9am-noon) began in September. The preschool (half or full day), and the full-day kindergarten begin in January. For details, visit www.adeonakg.com.

Register for our Sai Kung information session to see what we are all about. Thursday, 6 December, 9:30 a.m. Call 2655 1112 to reserve your seat. Space is limited.

English Schools Foundation (ESF) made a surprise announcement last month that it would be charging a $500,000 debenture for priority placement in its application process.

The new Nomination Rights scheme replaces its existing Corporate Surety effective October 3. Children whose parents apply under the NR scheme now have the option of paying a non-refundable $500,000 debenture for priority placement in the application process.

As with the previous scheme, the number of NR spaces offered will be limited to 150 across all 14 ESF primary and secondary schools. It is entirely optional and can be applied to any year group, including years one and seven. Anyone can apply. It is neither mandatory for all new applicants, nor applicable to families whose children are already in the ESF system.

Under the NR scheme, parents make an initial $50,000 deposit on applying, and join a wait list ordered by both date and time stamp for the applicant’s choice of three schools. If none of the 150 NR scheme spaces remain, the application is placed on a “central interest list” and the cheque is returned.

If space is available on the scheme, the child will be interviewed and, if successful, invited to attend the school to which he or she applied. The $450,000 balance would be due at this time. (If the applicant is unsuccessful at interview, the $50,000 cheque is returned.)

“The ESF Nomination Rights Scheme has the potential to raise up to $75 million a year,” said ESF treasurer Robert Gazzi.

The money will be used to renovate ESF’s 14 primary and secondary schools.

Congratulations to Carey Chan, winner of two A-Reserve tickets to The Mousetrap, and to Alison Cooke, winner of two A-Reserve tickets to Burn The Floor. In the wake of its successful fundraiser last month, Sai Kung Stray Friends is holding a series of Adoption Weekends at its new premises in Tam Lam Wu, near Ho Chung. Meet the dogs, take them for walks – and maybe take your favourite Fido home for good. All the rescue dogs have been desexed, vaccinated and are healthy. The Adoption Weekends will be held at 11am-4pm, September 29-30 and November 10-11, at 151 Tai Lam Wu, Sai Kung, 2335 1126, saikungstrayfriends@gmail.com. (Drive up Ho Chung Road, turning left near the top of the hill across a bridge. Continue through Tai Lam Wu to the end of the road; Sai Kung Stray Friends is behind the large grey gates.)

About six years ago, just after I retired, I found I had a lot of spare time on my hands. One day, a friend of mine told me he raised bees as a hobby, which sounded pretty interesting. A few weeks later he helped me set up a few hives and I’ve been raising them ever since.

I have about five in use, each with about 10,000 bees. I used to have 16 hives, but for the past few years the weather’s been poor for the bees and many have swarmed [abandoned a hive to establish a new one] to find better grounds. Swarming is a natural instinct for bees – there’s not too much you can do to stop it.

Bees are quite fussy: they need a lot of space near lots of flowers or blossom trees for the colony to survive. It’s also best to keep them out of the way of traffic and people, since these disrupt their flight paths. Another major thing to look out for are insects and predators such as wasps or lizards, which try to take root in the hive or eat the bees.

Bees take a bit of work. I have to clean out the hives about once a month. You have to be careful: it takes about an hour to clean each one. Cleaning all 16 takes a day or two. You have to feed the bees if they’re starting a new colony or if there’s been a bad year. Usually some sugar water does the trick.

With most of my hives I could produce six or seven kilogrammes of honey a year, but at the moment I can get about two or three kilogrammes. The lack of honey isn’t just in the Sai Kung area: friends who harvest all over Hong Kong and China have said the conditions aren’t as good.

Of course! Nothing tastes sweeter than honey you’ve made yourself. There’s a trick to test the quality of honey: if it’s a light colour and not very thick, it has a higher concentration of water and will be less sweet. If it’s thick and dark, there is a lower concentration of water, which means that the honey is more mature. The older the honey, the sweeter the flavour.