Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Taplow
Getting my car out of the garage early afternoon, I noticed that the air was full of humming insects. These turned out to be honey bees.
I drove down the car park and watched the bees settle in two clusters in the Kousa dogwood.
I went back later to find only the right-hand cluster - of which this is the tip.
I've been complaining recently about not seeing any honey bees in the garden (we usually have about a dozen at any one time). There must be a few hundred here!
In his book Fauna Britannica, Stefan Buczacki includes the following wise old country saying:
A swarm of bees in May is worth a load of hay;
A swarm in June is worth a silver spoon;
A swarm in July is not worth a butterfly.
Like most wise old country sayings, probably complete bunkum. However, at a time when honey bees are in trouble, this was a heartening sight.
Dorney
A common tern was a new one for my Eton Wick flood list yesterday.
A redshank was also present.
// posted by Christine @ 9:00 AM 
