Crocus Pollen.

It was cold and damp early this morning and, as the petals on the crocuses were tightly shut, I tried to carefully fold them back on one of the flowers for a blip - it didn’t work very well. I had some shopping to deliver after that and by the time I was back home the sun had come out and they had opened up all by themselves. I should have been a little more patient.
 
I was planning to take a waterproof storage box out to the apiary, but retook the blip before loading the car. Although I tried natural light, this one with flash came out best; it’s actually three images processed as HDR in Photomatix followed by a little tweaking in Photoshop; I was quite pleased with it.


I assembled the box to the pleasant hum of contented bees, they’ll need feeding fairly soon; most novice beekeepers are surprised to learn that it is in March and April when most colonies die from neglect. The other issue is that, with plenty of pollen about, but little nectar, it is the shortage of sugar that limits the growth of a colony. If not fed now, when the sycamore flowers in May the bees need it to build up whereas they should be using it to make honey.