The Bee Garden spring 2017

The winter is the time for ideas and deep thinking. The spring time is the time to try to make them happen. By the spring nature is bursting to get going so who am I to get in the way? First a short resume of last year inthe Bee Garden. A farmer ploughed and harrowed the acres for me in May then it rained and rained. By the time the soil dried out it was too late to sow seeds as the weeds had got away. However it was useful to see what weeds grew. There was Thistles of three types, Coltsfoot, Butterbur, some Dock, grasses of different types. Dandelions and a host of other yellow and blue field flowers I did not recognise. Christmas provided a wild flower identification book so I can better report on what I see. I moved thirty hives in to the Bee Garden in June. As the spring gave way to summer and summer to autumn it was great to see the change in the sequence of flowers. Looking across the flower heads one could see many species of bees, butterflies, flies. As the seed heads developed the birds moved in to avail themselves of the bounty. There was some flooding in a corner of the garden in January. That was good really as it exposed a threat and the position of the hives has been adjusted according.