We had a look at some bees on 28th April at Cornhill, fifteen miles inland, and found that they were doing well on the wild cherry blossom known locally as ‘the gean’. There were many young bees taking flight for the first time and making a lot of noise as they orientate on their hives and find out where they belong. This is known as ‘play flight.’ We looked at some other hives that were in a field of oilseed rape and found that the bees had no interest in the flowers. Oilseed rape no longer yields nectar, at least the modern varieties don’t.
We have found that the bees in apiaries close to the coast have gone backwards in their development because of the bitterly cold onshore winds (down to 6C through the day). This is quite normal. Likewise, the wild cherries have been in bud for weeks waiting for the weather to improve. How they all get pollinated I will never know, because there are no insects about other than our bees. These cherry trees provide a vast amount of food for wild birds. When the birds have digested the cherries, which are reputed to contain prussic acid, the kernels are distributed all around the countryside resulting in more cherry trees. Another example of a mutually beneficial partnership between two different organisms otherwise known as symbiosis.
