Devon SSSI nature reserve and eco lodges - Maggie's Blog
26 March
Violets...
Violets - inconspicuous herald of spring warmth. This one is hanging on tenaciously in the debris that's accumlated behind a gate - barely more than a damp patch of leaf mold on concrete.
It seems quite early to me, but other wildlife bloggers are also reporting them and I think I remember my Dad picking them from a sunny bank for my grandmother on mothers day, so maybe not...
The willow catkins are out too - good news for the bees at this time of year.
But all's not well with Ian's bees sadly. On first inspection we thought we'd lost the Queen. But with the help of the local bee expert who is teaching Ian's course,
we've discovered that we have a drone-laying Queen - one that wasn't properly mated and has run out of sperm and is only laying drone cells, not workers. Oh dear. Not good. It's too early in the season to get hold of a new queen, yet the colony may not keep going much longer.
What to do? Such a shame if they don't make it.