A Frame of Nectar.

I was checking out the progress of the hive of bees I look after at Newbattle this afternoon. It had been the subject of a swarm control procedure three weeks ago. All the brood in the isolated box has now hatched out and they have two honey boxes and a brood box full of nectar that they are ripening, that is, they are evaporating excess water to bring the sugar content up to about eighty per cent; at this concentration the honey cannot ferment but there's a little way to go yet before they achieve this. When this frame was first removed it was covered with bees, but by the time I was ready to blip, they had nearly all wandered off back into the dark of the hive; they’re not to keen on working in the daylight. The few that are left are obviously too busy to notice the sun shining on their backs.

Most of this nectar was collected from lime trees, not the citrus lime but the British linden tree of folk song fame. How do I know what sort of honey they are producing? This one's easy, there is a greenish tinge to it, a minty smell (and taste) and, it's what is in flower in the area at the moment. A stem bearing three flowers is shown in the inset, I plucked it from a tree not twenty yards from the hive as I was leaving.