The New Year is only a few days old when we walk along the margin of Godshill Inclosure. There’s a chill in the air following a night of frost but the sun is raking this ridge with enough warmth to entice a host of insects to break cover. Little spirals of minute midges dance beneath overhanging branches. A bumblebee shoots out of the woodland edge, making a bee-line for the bank of glowing gorse blossoms. After days of overhanging clouds, and often drenching rain, the ground is a quagmire in places. This bright morning offers a very short opportunity for insects that have survived so far to refuel.
Other bees have worked through the months past to build their nests, stocking their combs with sufficient honey to see them through the months ahead. As we press on into the Inclosure we come across a woeful sight. In the hollow of a fallen branch is a bees’ nest that has met with disaster. The insects are still tending their home but they are sluggish and look dispirited, for there is little warmth in this dark corner nor hope for them.
They had chosen a hole some 10 metres up in an old oak, no doubt sensing that it would give security to rear their broods and store enough honey to carry them through winter’s chill. Not many predators would get at them there. That choice was to prove their downfall when the tempest twisted through the treetops, tearing at twig and timber.
Their hive was constructed in the weakest spot, for them catastrophically revealed when the branch was torn from the trunk. Inside it the combs are askew. Some have spilled onto the woodland floor. As we watch, a few bees emerge to make short forays but quickly return, and one crawls lethargically away from the nearest comb whose cells are water-filled and soggy. Someone has covered their exposed nest with shards of bark to give them protection. Sadly, their new year will not be long.
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