It's been a wet week and yesterday I went to check on beehive #5 at Lane Cove. The garden was open to the public as part of the Open Gardens scheme and I did a short talk about bees from my perspective, and about the risks all our nectavores face from Apis Cerana (the Asian Bee). This thing is a real concern as it will kick many of our natives out of their nesting sites. Bats, possums, birds etc are also under threat from it.

The hive is going ok with pollen still being brought in despite the rain, so I am looking forward to having a look once we get a fine day.

The brood should have started hatching and the young bees should be starting to fill the brood box and will be flying soon, which will coincide with a lot of pending flowers I can see around the garden there. They need to get cracking to get their winter stores.

Mandy sent me this shot of one of the girls in action on some basil.