February 2025 began with mainly cold and grey conditions, a few rainy days early in the month, and then more cold overcast days with easterly winds.

Early in the month, I made a short video to show how many flowers we have early in February even in what’s been the most consistently cold and grey, if not severely cold winter we’ve had for several years.

Within just a few days many more snowdrops and Crocus were emerging and the wonderful Chrysosplenium macrophyllum flowers were beginning to open.

However even in rare fleeting moments of sunshine there were almost no opportunities for honey bees to visit these flowers – the wind chill was just too severe. We had a frantic 10 days when 3 grandchildren visited us for a week, coinciding with a visit from a crew from ITV’s ‘Coast and Country’ who filmed us in and around the garden. Much fun was had by all.

And we can’t wait to see what drone footage the lovely cameraman, James, has managed to safely capture, with all the bees safely clustering inside their hives. Although I fear that 2 of the older honey bee colonies may well have succumbed by the beginning of February, since neither showed any sign of activity when the other 3 had at least a few worker bees scouting very early in the month.

Just 2 days later, and we held our first NGS garden open weekend in mixed weather, but with lots of lovely visitors – some familiar faces, several new to Gelli Uchaf. Then 2 days later we hosted some lovely visitors from a local U3A group. It was bitterly cold, with a brisk Easterly wind, and an apparent perceived temperature of 30 Degrees F.

Despite this, the clouds parted a little and the Crocus opened for them.

We were impressed by their determination to see all the garden and even make it up to the shepherd’s hut, before they were revived with coffee/tea and Fiona’s cake selections.

Whilst Fiona was setting up the refreshments before they arrived, I seized the moment, whizzed around the garden with my camera and was then able to edit this short video, which captures in a small way what the garden looked like, and how much it had changed in the 2 weeks since the earlier one I’ve included, above, from February 3rd.

The weather then changed again and we endured 3 days of heavy rain and strong winds, before on February 22nd, came a day of glorious respite. The sun came out for much of the day, temperatures were above 50 degrees F, winds light and from the South West and at last, for the first time this year, lots of honey bees from all 5 remaining colonies which went into winter alive, were working the flowers throughout the garden.

What a real joy! And even more exciting was seeing how many Crocus flowers are now beginning to pop up around the upper hay meadow from seed I’ve saved and scattered over the last 6 or so years. It’s been a long slog, but now my vision of establishing a flower filled meadow for a long a season as possible seems a realistic possibility.

Particularly since in the absence of any emerged overwintered bumblebees, (still), at least one exploring honey bee had discovered the open Crocus flowers and was systematically working them. So additional seed set and drop should follow later this year.

A second large amount of frogspawn was laid in the upper pond. However the delight was short-lived – the weather changed again after 24 hours with a day of torrential rain, more field saturation, and testing of flood management strategies.

However the month ended on a dryer, sunnier and cooler note as we headed towards St. David’s Day.

The month was certainly better than in 2024, with less rain (180mm) many more dry days, and more sunshine, even if it was generally colder, with many grey days early in the month.

Here are my weather records for February, since I’ve been recording them, with maximum/minimum readings.

2014: 349.1mm rain, No dry days No frosts. No snow, PV N/A

2015: 108 mm rain, 14 dry days, Frosts and Snow. PV N/A

2016: 193.1 mm, 8 dry days, Some frosts, snow. PV 180 KWH

2017: 149.9 mm rain, 7 dry days, No frosts or snow. PV 111 KWH

2018: 103 mm rain, 10 dry days, Frosts light snow. PV 202 KWH

2019: 135.7 mm rain, 10 dry days Frosts to minus 10 Snow, 207 KWH

2020: 357mm rain, 2 dry days, Frosts and light snow. PV 139.1 KWH

2021: 354mm rain, 10 dry days, 6 Frosts to minus 7, PV 135.2 KWH

2022: 254.3mm rain, 5 dry days, No frosts/snow, PV 128 KWH

2023: 31.2 mm rain, 14 dry days, Frosts no snow, PV 188 KWH

2024: 273mm rain, 1 dry day, 1 frost to minus 2 Deg C, No snow PV 115.2 KWH

2025:180 mm rain, 11 dry days, 2 days frost to minus 3 Deg C, no snow PV 140 KWH