Biggles learns to fly

New bees spend the first few weeks of their life doing various jobs inside the hive, but there comes a time when they have to learn to fly: Today was that day. Exactly 2 weeks after I saw evidence of new bees being born (see last post) the youngsters took to the skies.
It was a perfect day for flying, warm and not too windy, so at around 2 pm scores of bees poured out of the hive and started flying....backwards!
There's a reason for this - flying is easy but navigation is difficult. The bees fly backwards a few feet whilst looking at the hive. They then fly from side to side, and eventually into ever widening circles around the hive. All the time they are learning the landmarks that will help then find their way home.
By 3.30 pm these so called 'play flights' were extending 20-30 meters away from the hive and the bees were getting increasingly curious as their confidence built. All sorts of non-forage flowers were investigated and then ignored once they realised there was no useful nectar. All blocks of colour caught their attention - including me in a bright purple T-shirt. Needless to say I had to make a run for it when some bees got a bit too curious!
Tomorrow the playing stops. They will be getting instructions on useful sources of forage from the winter bees and the work begins. Perfect timing because the apple is just coming into blossom.