Going over

Two images from the last week showing the oilseed rape (OSR) going over. The first – from the last day of May – nicely sums up the weather we’ve enjoyed this Spring. The OSR is already fading fast.

Mainly dry …

The excellent Bablake School weather station recorded May 2015 as having more rain, less sunshine and colder temperatures than the 30 year average for Coventry. The average maximum temperature was 15.2ºC (1.4ºC lower than average) explaining the slow build-up of colonies. The OSR was in full flower before most colonies were able to fully exploit it and even strong colonies were hampered from foraging by the weather.

Yellow path …

And a week later (7^th June) it’s gone. Typically, colonies that have been foraging on OSR get bad tempered once flowering is over. It’ll be interesting to see whether this happens this year when they’ve hardly had the opportunity to use the OSR. In the photo above it’s not clear why the only OSR flowering is along the footpath … I suspect these were slightly lower growing plants which were a bit more sheltered. Some of the sheltered field margins also had flowers lingering. However, there were almost no bees on the flowers and it’s effectively over for the year.