Abandoned bee hives (photo)

Posted by con jamón spain ⋅ February 24, 2015

Filed Under Andalucia, Órgiva, La Alpujarra, Sierra Nevada Mountains, Spain, Spanish nature, Spanish wildlife, Trees and flora

As we enter the last week of February, devoid of a leap day (the next is 2016), we awake to light and not dark. For several days the air has been warm, the daily ritual of building a fire will soon be gone.

Away from the roads and bustle of Órgiva, the rocky, mainly dry riverbed of the Rio Sucio is an area that time seems to have forgotten. A Sunday walk, surrounded by candy-floss almond blossom, took us alongside the narrow river that snakes down the valley to meet the Rio Guadalfeo; the snow-melt on its journey to the coast near Motril and Salobreña.

The recent winds have taken their toll on those wispy bushes that populate river plains, with an abundance of firewood lying around. From out of nature’s mess we found another: bee hives strewn across the area. The empty wooden boxes – with their last vestiges of wax clinging onto battered frames – looked like the result of an Andy Warhol tantrum from the mid-60s.

Keeping bees; now there’s a thought.