June gap

[Horseradish]

Bramble is not out yet in my area, still budding. European Dewberry is out though.

 

[bontbee]

Bramble and clover starting to flower here, though not much evidence of a flow yet, (but it's gone cold again here). Bees holding their own on income v outgoings, at the mo' anyway. Good spring - just about to extract in case there is a summer... (PS, plenty still on hives I haven't robbed them out but the empty boxes, as per stiffy, will be very useful!)

 

[madasafish]

Flow or not is irrelevant here. Three weeks of gloomy cold damp/wet weather..(it's 14C at 1pm today). At least the lime trees have wet ground.. all we need is some sunny weather for more than 1 hour /day...

 

[Finman]

.our temp is now 30C. Dandelion stopped couple days ago. Autumn **** is finishing its blooming. Lilacs are blooming.

Next is wild raspberry perhaps after a week. It is real June gap after ****.

In May we got 80 mm rain.

 

[DaveG23]

Bramble just starting in the last few weeks, not out in profusion yet. Thankfully some sun and heat today, in between the odd shower, much improved after 2 weeks of cold, wind and rain.

 

[mbc]

Bees working hard again, no discernable surplus or nectar shake yet but that's in the post, it's been a hard few weeks for them here.
May 27th to June 19th, almost a month of eating more than they were collecting.

 

[Swarm]

Bees working hard again, no discernable surplus or nectar shake yet but that's in the post, it's been a hard few weeks for them here.
May 27th to June 19th, almost a month of eating more than they were collecting.

Much the same here, glad I left their Spring honey with them, not much of it left.
These next few days of sunshine will be very welcome now that Bramble and Clover are finally in bloom.

 

[beeno]

Much the same here, glad I left their Spring honey with them, not much of it left.
These next few days of sunshine will be very welcome now that Bramble and Clover are finally in bloom.

+1

 

[bontbee]

Air con on tonight...

 

[ericbeaumont]

Was just thinking about the June gap, is London equally affected or is London immune?

Equally affected, variably.

Walthamstow supers remained totally empty until May though colonies had built well by March. Not much swarming.

In Epping - 14 miles north - they're on 3-5 full supers, south-east in Dagenham, one. Tottenham colonies very strong and two full by April, Stoke Newington two full. Chigwell - 10 miles east - one or two full. West Surrey best with OSR, after which it stopped; last week nucs from splits needed feeding everywhere.

This gap is the first significant that I can recall; although we had a month head start - a January flow - nature corrected timings and gave us a vast gap.

It's been wet, it's now warm. Should perk up.

 

[For want of a better word]

https://www.plantlife.org.uk/uk/discover-wild-plants-nature/plant-fungi-species/himalayan-balsam

Tallest plants ever in the Greatgreygreengreasytamarrivervalleyallsetaboutwithtvcrews...

Environment Agency and it band of competent volunteers did a great job on spreading its seeds last year.... Ragwort is out in bud too....

Goodbye June gap?

Chons da

 

[For want of a better word]

Equally affected, variably.

Walthamstow supers remained totally empty until May though colonies had built well by March. Not much swarming.

In Epping - 14 miles north - they're on 3-5 full supers, south-east in Dagenham, one. Tottenham colonies very strong and two full by April, Stoke Newington two full. Chigwell - 10 miles east - one or two full. West Surrey best with OSR, after which it stopped; last week nucs from splits needed feeding everywhere.

This gap is the first significant that I can recall; although we had a month head start - a January flow - nature corrected timings and gave us a vast gap.

It's been wet, it's now warm. Should perk up.

WOW.. how long does it take to drive to all of those apiary sites... given that from memory London traffic goes at the speed of a double decker? ( What happened to Muswell Metro?)

Well done

 

[Curly green fingers]

+1

+2 at home they were left with spring honey .

 

[thibault]

+2 at home they were left with spring honey .

-1, [emoji6], I extracted all that spring honey.

Sent from my SM-J710F using Tapatalk

 

[beeno]

-1, [emoji6], I extracted all that spring honey.

Sent from my SM-J710F using Tapatalk

I could have extracted some, but they had only just started to cap it. Only to uncap it a week later! Saved worrying about stores though. Back on a flow now. Be interesting to see how the season progresses as most of my honey last year was spring honey due to the drought.