We don't have much to harvest from our vegetable garden at this time of year.  Parsnips, cabbage and sprouts is about it.  But there are also a few Barbietola di Chioggia beetroot left which seem not to have suffered from being left in the ground since the early summer.  And they still look so pretty.

We have an old beehive in our orchard which I am very fond of.  It reminds me of my father leaping about in his beekeepers boilersuit and hair net trying to remove the one bee which had managed to find its way inside.  And he never even liked honey!

I have never had the courage to keep honey bees myself, as I don't think I would be able to devote the time that's needed for the health checks.  But we do have nesting places for solitary bees in our pollinating bee log and for bumblebees in our new bumblebee nest.