Tell 'em about the honey, mummy

It's that time of the year when you might spot clusters of boxes dotted on the distant open heathland slopes, these will be Bee Hives.  The hives are brought out into forest by bee keepers during the late summer to take advantage of the abundance of heather, said to be the finest of honey.  They'll be gone soon as the heather has all but gone over. When you hear 'forest' you think trees, don't you, and there are plenty of trees around here, for sure, although the majority of the New Forest is actually open heathland, with elements of wet heath. Here Heather and Ling are king, being by far the dominant ground flora, so there's a lot of pollen to be gathered.