The first honey

What a strange year its been already, and it is still only June.  A really long dragged out Winter, coldest Spring on record and yet here we are mid June taking honey, five supers to be exact.  All capped, and almost certainly oil seed rape.  In fact in this part of the country, South Lincolnshire, I don't think I have ever had more than a few kilos of clear honey.  The oil seed rape has been in flower now since mid/late May and there are still fields in full flower that look as if they have a couple of weeks left in them.  The wild oil seed rape is in flower in the hedgerows and along the dyke banks and roadside verges, and will continue to flower throughout the summer, right up until the ivy flowers.  So if our honey is not pure oil seed rape, there is nearly always enough of it in the supers to set any other nectar the bees might be collecting.