At last spring has arrived

I must remember not to stand in the bees flight path whilst I'm tending the bottom flower beds, yesterday I had a bee fly right into my left ear. Must have an odd experience for the bee but funny for the neighbours to watch me tipping my head to the left and banging the right side of me head to try and dislodge it. Instinct was to jam my finger in there, but I didn't want a bee sting in my ear. Especially as I have not been stung yet and would have been my first one, they say the first is the worst. Mybe I should do a controlled sting.

The bees have been in and out all weekend now the temperature has gone above 8°c, at most it reached 11°c during the daytime this weekend. Some bees were hardly able to make it back to the hive and by the end of each day there must have been a couple of hundred dead bees laden with pollen in front of the hive that just didn't have the strength to get back inside.

 

Most were bringing back yellow or orange pollen, but some were bringing back pollen that was a vivid blue, I gather that they must have found some Siberian Squill plants nearby as the colour resembled that on the chart on Wikipedia

 

I also made some lip balm from some of last seasons bees wax, I just added some  coconut oil and some peppermint essence, it's so easy to make I might make some strawberry as well.