The bees were flying this afternoon, until a heavy hailstorm put a stop to that. I had a look at them; there's very little uncapped brood, and most of the capped brood I saw last week has hatched. The queen must have been laying like mad through the warm weather a while back, but she's done very little since it turned colder. That's no bad thing; a colony with a large broodnest in bad weather is in danger of starving. I had a train like that years ago, and every time there was a bad spell in May, a lot of brood was thrown out of the cells, since the bees were unable to feed it all. There were quite a few drones in the hive.

The broad beans are coming up, along with the first of the peas. I'v planted three varieties of leeks, and several kales and other brassicas. There's not a lot happening in this cold weather; I'm continuing to clear ground, and the pears are in flower. The plums are almost over, and the apples are starting to show a little colour.