A Story of a Year

Chapter Two

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February

Oxfordshire, February 2024

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And in that moment I think I knew.

I felt sick in some ways, knowing we’d lost them.

All I had done to ensure that they had the best chance of survival lay ruined. It was just too quiet as I sat there watching on that afternoon in the cold orchard, as I sat with my back against the trunk of a lichen-encrusted old apple tree, ( a Lord Lambourne if I’m correct and that I remember the orchard map well enough). My socks felt wet as I perched on my heels in the long blades of sedge grass, nestled amongst the small piles of freshly pruned branches that John had arranged neatly in rows between the trees. I watch the slow buzzing procession of apiarian traffic coming and going from the stronger hive, bringing home vivid yellow crocus pollen, little clumps of the bright grains stuck to the bee’s corbicula on their long drooping legs, on what was the first warm day of February when the temperature for the first time this year rose above ten degrees.

Bees in flight, heading home to the entrance block to their place, the door still protected by the cold metal mouse guard, a strip of rough steel with small holes drilled into it to allow the bees to enter, placed over the small front door of the hive, held in place with brass tacks, ones that I pushed in awkwardly in the depths of winter with my thumbs, numb in the cold, the circle of the head of the tack imprinted in the soft flesh of the tip of my thumb, bending them into the hardwood to deter any mice. This will give the bees a fighting chance against any invaders that might want to share their hive over winter. Today the bright little pellets of pollen, some of the first of the season from the early flowers of the year, crocus and primula, are brought back home, stuck to their small furry bodies. A good sign that the Queen is still in situ, alive and laying eggs on her brood frames.