A couple of weeks ago, I was in the One Acre Wood helping to sort out firewood. At the far end of the main clearing, by the King of the Forest oak tree, I heard a certain amount of buzzing. We are used to flies if something has been indiscrete in the wood, and of course mosquitoes in the summer if the clay pits have water in them, but it wasn't that sort of buzzing.
I looked around and followed the noise and found a small number of bees working over the catkins on a hazel stem. I'm not sure there is much by way of nectar, but I could see they had loads of pollen collected on their legs. It was the first time I have observed this, so was very taken with it. The bee keeping forum I participate in have also mentioned it over the last couple of weeks.
Of course the bees don't go to the female flowers, so it won't have helped any hazelnuts to set, but wonderful to see that at least some bees are making it through this mild and wet winter. You can just about see the pollen sacs on the bee in the picture below.
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