BBKA Forum

Same here with osr but Chestnut is still looking great.

Lovely walk along the Cheddar Yeo this afternoon, limestone river coming down from the Mendips and Cheddar Gorge. Some nice wild brownies in the river. Some large communal web nests of Hawthorn moth caterpillars, stripping the leaves off a hedge of ... hawthorn.

There were the first flowers of bramble coming out, so it looks like our June Gap might not be very gappy this year.

wild rose is out in abundance round us and I am also starting to see bramble in flower now, which is great.

the areas where there is water balsam although not in flower and no flower buds either as its to early , the plants are looking very strong and vigourous.

We have early bramble flowering too. It doesn't yield much until the 'main crop' blackberry flowers - whatever that is.
Have some Cordyline australis flowering in the garden. Smells like jasmine and it's crawling with bees.

My bees won't take feed and still have plenty of stores after the last week of constant rain. Makes me think there's a lot of forage about.
Whenever I pass cotoneaster (not sure which type) they're chocker with bees. I think I'll get some of them on the allotment.

Side note: I'm in very early days of learning plant/flower/tree names and their relevance to bees.

Where I am , there doesn't seem to be much out, currently feeding nucs. Well actually feeding a strong colony and then moving frames of stores to nucs.

Elder flower in profusion here at the moment.

Cheers, Mick.

Went past three fields of poppy starting to flower within a mile of the apiary today.

Anyone know if they like it or if it makes good honey?

Only pollen from poppy....

NigelP wrote: ↑

17 Jun 2019, 18:56

Only pollen from poppy....

Ah, interesting! Another steep learning curve to look forward too alongside bees