Slow, slow, quick, quick

Years - springs especially - vary enormously. Last year at this time oilseed rape (OSR) nectar has been filling the hives for three weeks. Two years ago, I was making notes about miserable, cold, wet weather throughout April and May - the bees barely got to visit OSR at all. I'm glad I have notes - going back nine years - to give me perspective

We think it is about to change. Warmth and sun, and the pent up energy in the plants and the hives will be released. Things will move very quickly. It looks as if that will begin tomorrow. So a trip to the apiary to put 'supers' on the hives to receive the nectar flow that should be the consequence. For now, we put just one on each of the thriving colonies - more may be needed, if all goes well. We place a 'queen excluder' between the 'brood box' (with the queen and the brood in it) and the super. This is just a stainless steel grid of narrowly spaced wires - the gaps large enough to let through workers loaded with nectar, but too narrow for the larger queen. This means there should be no brood in the super and we can take it home and extract honey without harming the colony. I use the conditional tense because it doesn't always work - a slim queen can still slip through sometimes

These fritillaries are lasting longer than they do in warmer years. There are also more of them, and stronger plants than at any time since Mrs M planted them, maybe ten years ago. It's an ill wind that serves nothing any good