Hot on the heels of Storm Ciara comes Storm Dennis. The UK experienced strong winds and very heavy localised rain. There has been flooding in some areas, but not in Oxford yet.

There's a lot of weather around. Last weekend brought Storm Ciara to the UK. Next weekend we'll get Storm Dennis.

There were fence panels down in our garden and a tree has blown down within sight of the house. The forecast was indicating gusts up to 66mph (57kn). It was noisy indoors.

Ciara seemed much stronger than usual, but how does it compare?

I've been visiting the hives in central Oxford every couple of weeks. There is still evidence of activity on the base board in all 6 hives (chewed cappings; dead Varroa; etc). I believe that they're all still alive and ok.

There are causes for concern though. All the hives have visible numbers of dead bees at their entrances. I don't know whether these were healthy bees which were stranded during cold weather or whether they were virus infected bees which crawled out of the hive. I presume the latter.