Well, I have been slack. 

As I publish this, we have just entered 2024 (!). Oops. Indeed, these are coming out alongside our 2022 results.

Truth be told, we don't recall too much about 2021 - probably as, in terms of weather, bees and honey crop, it all turned out to be bang average. As reported when the 2020 results were pubished, April and May were really nasty months weather-wise, and the bees could not capitalise. That said, although Spring '21 wasn't great, it was saved by a late and dramatic flush of Hawthorn, and the colonies - which were especially healthy and strong, went into the period of mid-summer flows in fine fettle, when the weather was pretty good.

Indeed, we were therefore somewhat disappointed with the (average) honey yield (though not, as ever, the above average quality !).

Having recorded 24 species in the prior year, we hit similar (25) in Summer '21, as shown below. Indeed the distribution of species was very similar to 2020. Nonetheless, there are certainly some interesting new entrants to the list. Our horse-loving friends will not be enamoured by the appearance of Ragwort in this list. Indeed, it's honey is bitter to us, and has a distinctly yellow hue. A couple of garden species and trees appear, but perhaps the most interesting entry is the last one - Trebouxia which is actually an alga. We have come to learn that such algae commonly occur as symbionts in lichens, and it could plausibly be the case that this has been brought back in the pollen loads of the bees foraging on tree pollen (sycamore and ash). Probably very good for a healthy gut, anyhow ! Enjoy.

Top 15 most abundant taxa in the sample

 

Complete list of taxa in the sample: