We've had proper snow over here. After false start in early December, Winter proper has arrived -although I have a sneaky suspicion it's going to be pretty short lived. There's snow on the garden, snow on the car, ice on the bloody windscreen and snow on the beehives.
I've been out in the cold to check on the bees. Using a stethoscope I got to hear what I'm fairly certain was a healthy hum in both hives. Most of the bees still living in the hive will have probably been born in late autumn at the earliest and many won't know much more than the darkess of the winter huddle. Any still surviving older ones probably regale them with stories of back in the day when you could go to magical place called Outsidethehive and meet flowers. As the younger bees roll their faceted eyes and mime tiny yawns at each other the old timers probably waffle on about all the work they did gathering nectar and turning it into honey and tales of the pollen and water they gathered for the colony. The young bees will probably think the old bees are a bit daft the in head as the only life they know is all about eating honey in a big winter hug and taking turns to move to the outside of the hug and shiver before going back into the warmth of the colony cluster.
I've been out in the cold to check on the bees. Using a stethoscope I got to hear what I'm fairly certain was a healthy hum in both hives. Most of the bees still living in the hive will have probably been born in late autumn at the earliest and many won't know much more than the darkess of the winter huddle. Any still surviving older ones probably regale them with stories of back in the day when you could go to magical place called Outsidethehive and meet flowers. As the younger bees roll their faceted eyes and mime tiny yawns at each other the old timers probably waffle on about all the work they did gathering nectar and turning it into honey and tales of the pollen and water they gathered for the colony. The young bees will probably think the old bees are a bit daft the in head as the only life they know is all about eating honey in a big winter hug and taking turns to move to the outside of the hug and shiver before going back into the warmth of the colony cluster.
