I know I only posted a few days ago and was talking about working towards wintering the bees, but the sun is shinning, its been a warm 16 to 18 degrees centigrade, spending a few hours or so working around the hive the smell coming from the hive is really strong, I think the smell is nice it reminds me of summer and smells like combination of nectar, honey and wax.

Looking through a few references on the internet I found a good explanation on www.honeybeesuite.com, the smell is typical for Autumn, the source of the smell is nectar, most probably from plants in the aster family, including goldenrod and small daisy-like flowers that grow in clusters.

When the bees start to dry this nectar into honey the smell can be very strong. The aster honey produced using these flowers isn’t always to everyone’s liking, however the honey tastes nothing like the odour they give off. Nevertheless, many beekeepers prefer to let the bees keep the aster honey for themselves.

Anyway winter is inevitable and I will need to get hive set up ready so next time I will go through what I will have done to prepare for this and some of things to do over the winter period and preparation for next year.