Odds and ends

“This is the way the season ends, not with a bang but a whimper”, with apologies to T.S. Eliot {{1}}.A few weeks ago I felt I was struggling to keep up, now I'm looking for things to do.Well … almost 😉.Beekeeping is a seasonal activity. In my part of the world, I'm busy from early April until late August.In some seasons things start early, bringing March into play.In others — like this year — they end prematurely.The prolonged drought conditions that prevailed during the summer brought forward the flowering of many sources of forage, and simultaneously put paid to any chances of a good crop from the late-season heather.As a consequence, the summer honey supers were filled by late July, and removed in the first days of August. This is almost a full month earlier than last year, which (admittedly) was later than usual as the farmer planted a big field of late-season Phacelia which was too tempting to ignore.Two photographs of a field of Phacelia taken 11 days apart (on the 8th and 19th…