I received one of Carolyn's out-of-the-blue, weird-question text messages on Tuesday morning:
I wonder how I would know where the fault lines in our garden & field are?
I have to admit, I have never wondered that. As a general rule, gardens don't have fault lines. So, on Tuesday evening, I took Carolyn for a walk, and demanded to know what the hell she was on about. It turned out she was on about bees (obviously). Someone had turned up at her bee club claiming that bee hives should be placed on fault lines. The vibrations rising up from the fault line, he reckoned, mean that the bees have to vibrate less that usual in the hive (!?!), which means they have more energy to use to gather nectar and stuff.
No, Carolyn didn't understand it either. I told her it was bollocks. If anyone who isn't a physicist or a member of the Beach Boys starts going on about vibrations, you can pretty much guarantee it's bollocks. The same goes for waves and energy (although I don't consider the Beach Boys particularly well-informed on the latter).
I asked Carolyn if the man had suggested placing crystals under the bee hives. He hadn't. I think he's missing a trick there. Crystals famously help to focus energy.
I then asked Carolyn if she was sure he had said fault lines and not ley lines. No, Carolyn was pretty sure he'd said fault lines.
"You did science at school and university," I said; "you don't actually believe this bollocks, do you?"
"I never did Geography!" said Carolyn.
I have to admit, she had me there.
I know very little about fault lines, or indeed bees. However, I do wonder whether the proximity to a fault line could be significantly changed over the width of a typical garden.
Barring a few dramatic earthquakes, which are mercifully few and far-between in the UK, I'm pretty sure most seismic activity takes place miles underground. Moving a few yards one way or another is not going to make a whole load of difference to your distance from this, even if the "vibrations" always emanated from the same spot, which i doubt.
I would have thought a much better way to get more honey was to plant a whole load of nectar-producing flowers as close to the hive as possible, so as to cut down on flight times (and indeed on honey-fueled carbon footprint).