Colony 1 has been continuously occupied for over 6 years. Every spring, except 2018, there have been bees crawling around outside the hive -- stricken with Deformed Wing Virus or some other paralysing virus. These bees became food for Sparrows.

This year seems worse than previous years. There appear to be more bees crawling and for longer. This might not be worse than usual but it feels it. In April it was mostly Drones which were crawling around. Now it is more likely to be workers.

The Lime tree (Tilia Cordata, or the Linden tree) is found all around Oxford. As I cycle under the avenue of them on South Parks Road I can feel the slight prickle of honeydew falling.

Honeydew is a sugar-water liquid secreted by the aphids who live on the Lime trees. They suck the sap and excrete the liquid which falls in a light spray from the trees. The leaves quickly get a shine where large amounts of this liquid has dried on them. I've seen this in other places around Oxford.

I took a quick look at the stuff which has been falling out of Colonies 15 and 16 today.

The removable tray under Colony 15 had lots of new wax platelets, indicating that they're busy building comb. There were also at least 3 Varroa bodies. This shouldn't be a surprise. Varroa are in all the colonies which I've encountered. This period after swarming has no brood so all the Varroa in the hive are clinging to the bees. Every mite which dies now does so before it can infest a brood cell, which is good news.