Make Hay (Honey) while the sun shines.

Today the crabapple blossoms are falling to the ground due to the rain. 

Hopefully yesterday's perfect weather allowed the pollinators to complete their work.

 By mid morning the whole tree was humming with the sound of various bees.

Similar to birdsong, the pitch of a bees hum can identify it's species.

The buzz of a bumblebee being far deeper

than that of the honey bee.

The Kerria was also attracting it's fair share of pollinators

Spending a few minutes hiveside can render a diverse pallete of pollen colours,

In my view, the most spectacular is the blue pollen from Scilla sibirica.

Bees, bees and more bees

Once again our strong hive swarmed and this time rather than settling low to the ground as the first swarm did, they went high into this oak tree, here seen through my binoculars.

I threw a weighted rope over the highest branch I could reach and hoisted a box (circled blue) with swarm lure inside, but it was a good 15 ft below the swarm (circled blue) and I went indoors for lunch without much hope of success.

After lunch, I fully expected the swarm to have flown to pastures new.

What I did not expect was the new pasture would be our garden fence, 

Easily within reach for recapture.

I held a cardboard box below the swarm and shook the fence,

Then I emptied the box into the hive. 

This was a substantial swarm and it took considerable time for the swarm to follow the queen into the hive.

But eventually the bees left the fence

 and are now safely back in a new hive.

Now we have the original hive (center R) which is still very strong, the early Spring split (center L) The first swarm (Left) and the second swarm (Right)