A HARD WINTER’S TALE
Two hard winters in one year. That’s more than enough for me not to mention the bees. They will come later, but it’s been hard especially for the plants that the bees have been happily foraging on for years.
Cordyline Australis, phormium, bottle brush (callistemon), eucalyptus, euonymus, lavenders, rosemary, mahonia, iris foetedis, hardy fushias, bay (laurus nobilis), myrtle, clematis avalanche, veronica, some hebes, oseospermum hardy jackorandum. All casualties of the deep cold and permafrost that we had last December. Some died off completely while others were severely affected. Tellingly they all survived out-doors in the cold weather of January 2010. We even lost some house plants that were in the porches and we are still waiting to see if other plants have ‘come through’.
These tender plants which ten to twenty years ago we would not have dreamt of growing outside have been gradually tested and with the recent mild winters they have come through and grown to maturity. It has been lovely to watch the bees working most of them and I’m glad I have a photographic record too. The question now is do I replace the southern softies or go for hardier natives. It has been wonderful to see the early spring flowers come through as though nothing had happened.
But these were not the biggest casualties. They were the nine or ten mature hawthorn trees that formed a very small woodland not far from the house. The area used to be permanent pasture and these trees were on a bank. They were covered in ivy and it was the sheer weight of two foot of snow that was too much for them and down they came.
We used to look forward to May when they would be loaded with blossom and again in September when the ivy would be swarming with bees.
The bees came through the winter well even the nucs and mini-nuc that was sitting on a table completely buried in snow except for a ‘tunnel’ in front of the entrance where the snow hadn’t settled due to the heat coming out of the entrance.
Article and photos by M. Edge
Yes, underneath all that snow is an ‘apidea’ mini-nuc and it can just be seen through the naturally formed hole at the entrance.
