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Do we often get decent lime flows in Scotland? I was walking around a National
Trust property yesterday morning and several huge limes were buzzing, air smelt fantastic too. It was just under 20 degC, still, overcast and very humid, which I think I read somewhere is ideal.
They are more reliable in the west but even there not a heavy cropper. I have one site in Perthshire with lots of lime trees and get a super off the strongest hives in most years. This year it has been poor with just a couple of half supers but the bees brought in a pile of light honey instead, probably mostly clover. Elsewhere I see smaller amounts and probably should follow Murray's advice to run for the hills instead, at least to sites with bell heather. I had a small site in the middle of Dundee for a few years which is surrounded by lime trees and only ever saw small corners of lime honey.
It is a remarkable honey though.
Have 1/2 dozen very mature lime trees about 200 yards from my garden apiary. Never got a lime crop from them ever. A bit of research has shown that the nectar is produced in the mornings and is exposed to the air and simply evaporates unless you get really humid conditions, which in late June/July is very rare here..especially this summer! Yet the trees are alive with bumbles, wasps, hover flies and the like all day, you can hear them from 100 yards away. I think it's aphid honey dew they are probably attracted to, not the nectar which has long since evaporated. Strangely I never see my bees there, presumably they are on richer/easier nectar sources.
I did get excited when I found I had transparent light green honey....but no characteristic minty taste and pollen analysis showed, as suspected, field bean pollen + many others. I found a single lime pollen in the whole sample.
One year...one year..it will be right.
I did spot at least one honey bee on the trees yesterday - I believe our own GreenGumbo has hives in the vicinity so maybe he has got lucky!
Thinking about how to describe that feeling when opening up the bait hive to see what happened to the decent sized swarm, that is definitely not mine, of very mild mannered bees that arrived at the end of June, to see that they have drawn out and laid 6 frames worth in a beautiful pattern, then you find the Q who looks gorgeous and even better now with a red dot on her. So, now to a full brood box. The word may be "deserving". Makes up for time spent with the Tayside public discussing what to do and not do with bumble bees, trying to keep track of calls from the public about swarms that have disappeared, and then there are the bees in the attic of cottage up in the hills that I said I'll look at.
As an aside - I looked into the water driven fruit press for getting heather honey last year. It looks excellent but I would want to test it first before making up my mind.
I had thought that the lime was over here for this year but, clearing supers at a site in N Fife last night, found some yellow-green stuff which I had to taste. It isn't minty but definitely like citrus lime (no relation). Gather a few bunches of flowers and make a tea with boiling water (5 mins steeping) and you'll get the idea. Feckless drone also reports it is still in flower in parts of Dundee.
There is oodles of Japanese knotweed there which I hope might give me a crop some year. Not in flower yet, but all the best colonies are on their way to the hills tonight. Nearly done with the heather shift.
Been waiting in for a delivery that (doh!) hasn't even been dispatched yet! Oh well, beekeeping in the evening is definitely the way to go, these days anyway. Someone is about to lose a Buckfast swarm (best thing for them!). Some bees are sniffing about the empty boxes at the back of the house and some have diverted in here, smelling bee stuff in here too.
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