This weather is beyond a joke!

I went to an out-apiary today.  Conditions were not  great -- it was about 10c, but at least the sun was shining and it wasn't raining (for a change).

All the hives are short of stores, and as for filling honey supers -- forget it.

This apiary is sandwiched between two huge fields of Oil Seed Rape (OSR).

Here are the photos.  Can you see what is odd?

See the two bees with the big pollen baskets?  One has orange pollen (source unknown, but I'm sure someone will tell me); the other has yellow pollen typical of OSR.  And many bees have lemon yellow dusting of pollen on their faces that shows they've been in the OSR.

I thought that will such a massive source of pollen and nectar literally metres away, they wouldn't bother with anything else.

But not so.  The books are wrong, or at least, my bees haven't read them.

(Sorry for the out-of-focus photos.  It's hard to get the focus right with a veil on).