The Pentland Hills (Again).

Blipping is beginning to show signs of becoming like reading New Scientist. The sound of the latest issue of my favourite magazine hitting the doormat is the trigger that starts me reading the equivalent issue from last year. Today I am working on the blip that should have been posted two days ago.

It was back to the bees today; if they are still alive they need feeding, six weeks ago I was concerned that there did not seem to be enough of them - they do need a critical mass to survive. The good news is that both colonies are alive and apparently well, so I think they should, with a little TLC, survive another year. It would, however, be unwise to become complacent as the highest mortality rate for colonies is in April when the beekeeper thinks that the trials of winter are over.

This time of the year, if it's warm enough, they are fed a weak sugar syrup; it is thought that the water content encourages them to start rearing brood, they do seem to benefit from the attention even when, like mine, they do have plenty of stores left over from the autumn feed. This may be partly because they store food in what is effectively a dehydrated form so that they have to go out to collect water to dilute it. The food the beekeeper provides is ready to consume.

This panorama of the Pentlands is taken from the 'farm gate' where I keep the bees, and is similar to my posting six weeks ago when I last went there. This time it has added snow, it's a pity I couldn't have done this two days ago when there was more of it.
C'est la vie.