Hurry, hurry

I see that I commented last year that I could not remember harvesting apples in July before. Well, guess what... 

These first-fruits are definitely ripe and sweet but, understandably, not as juicy as usual; and of course they are very small. It's still good to taste new season fruit, though, even if it seems outrageous to say this is the beginning of autumn. The variety is a 'red' variant of George Cave, an apple bred 102 years ago by Mr Cave in Essex, one of the earliest to ripen. It begins to lose flavour the moment it is picked

Checking the apples feels as if it was a quiet moment between beekeeping tasks. We had an official inspection that pronounced us disease-free, but got a few tips on managing the bees - mainly to try to resist the wasp attacks we are suffering. This created urgent tasks that we spent the rest of the day executing, getting very hot and tired. I hope it works