In Scotland, good weather is rarely unconditional. Take the honey bees, for instance. You’d think the wee fellas would be delighted with all this unseasonably good weather, but you’d be wrong. In Edinburgh on Saturday, Michelle Wood, who sells organic vegetables from her stall in the farmers market below the castle, was delivering a lesson in bee welfare. “People are tempted to cut their lawns too early when the weather is as mild as this in February,” she said. “That means the daisies and dandelions, which are a vital source of food for the honey bees, get cut, too, thus endangering the hive. I’m starting a campaign to raise awareness of this.”
In Princes Street Gardens and up by the National Monument on Calton Hill, little clutches of daffodils were gathering, soon to announce their riotous presence. At the head gardener’s house at the east end of the Gardens, purples, pinks and yellows were already emerging. It is hard to believe that in this week last year all these places, along with just about everywhere else in Scotland, were impassable amid massive snowdrifts. The country’s first ever red warning for snow was issued as the “Beast from the East” occupied most of the UK and held it fast for two weeks.
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