Hot and cold brambles

It’s cold and frosty here at the moment. Any brambles that haven’t lost all their leaves look like this …

Cold brambles

… but it won’t be too long until the days get warmer and they flower again …

Hot brambles

… my bees are usually a lot darker than the one in the picture above which was taken in September. I suspect this was a visitor from a neighbouring apiary, possibly the same one that also provided a lovely swarm that occupied a bait hive of mine earlier in the year. Here’s the queen (now clipped and marked) at the end of June …

Big yellow queen