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Hungry Bees
It has been a bad year for the collection of honey, and quite a number of people have sent me evidence of a new habit in the hive bee. In Suffolk, as in Hertfordshire and many other places, the bees (which are short of food) are playing the wasp and feeding greedily on fallen fruit that is a little rotten. This is quite alien to their usual habit. It is curious to notice that the bees, the ants, the birds and the rodents all know a good sort of apple from an indifferent, even if they prefer it rotten before it is half ripe, like Shakes- peare's medlar. The windfalls from the Cox, and indeed many of the apples on the tree, are punctured and hollowed while the " cookers " next door are severely disregarded. Rats show a like preference in an apple store.
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