from the end of a cleansing flight of fancy
The relatively cold weather of late, here in northeast London, has been playing on the mind of ‘Field Study’s Man in E11’. He has been fretting about the well being of the honeybees in our allotment apiary; in particular, how they have been standing up to the sub-zero night-time temperatures? I tried to reassure the field student by recounting my experience of briefly opening up the hives earlier in the month to administer some oxalic acid treatment for varrhoa mites. I found each of our hives contained a large cluster of bees; a phenomenon measured by the number of frames apparently occupied by the little creatures. I tried to persuade the field student that this was a very good sign considering the cold spell over Christmas and New Year. It wasn’t just that there were a lot of bees it was also that the hives were still heavy with honey stores and the bees were feeding from fondant we had placed at the top of the hives. The field student was obviously miffed that he had not