Dinner.

Having written, last Tuesday, about the need to feed the bees copiously in spring, I went up to the apiary this afternoon to prepare the hives. There are always surprises; having given each of the four hives a block of candy made from 3¾ kg of sugar: two colonies were very strong and had completely demolished their winter feed and, while they have plenty of food in the larder for now, will need monitoring to make sure that they don’t go hungry over the next month or so; a third colony hadn’t even looked at Its candy, it was weak but, but then it was the same going into the winter and should now be o.k. The weather turned rather nasty before I had a chance to check the last hive though I imagine it will be the same as the two strong ones.
 
I had hoped to take suitable photographs of the bees for a census; the Scottish Native Honey Bee Society want pictures of dark bees so that they can target DNA testing on any colonies that appear close to the British black bee type. Three of mine appear to be a fit with the fourth having large yellow stripes on them. This fourth one is odd in that it is headed by the sister of the queen of the darkest colony. I’ll post pictures when I have them.
 
My apologies if you are having your breakfast, but the other item of note was the appearance of this recently deceased pigeon. I speak from a firm foundation of ignorance, but imagine that it died of sparrow hawk; a fox would have taken the carcase away to enjoy later. The flight muscles have gone, as have most of the internal organs and the head. So that’s all the juicy bits accounted for. Alongside it was a neat pile of white feathers (see extra, sorry Kaybee, I should have put them on one side for you).