Last Wednesday the 9^th March produced yet another record breaking temperature. This time, the weather delivered the warmest overnight low temperature for March in Melbourne in recorded history. Well done! At 7.30am on that Wednesday morning in Melbourne the night time air finally cooled to a low of 29.1’C (84.3’F) and it was strangely humid too.

Fortunately, the air temperature here was a bit cooler as I'm up in the forested mountains north of Melbourne. The farm is about 700m (2,300ft) above sea level so it is usually much cooler than Melbourne, although occasionally it can also be hotter when Melbourne is enjoying a sea breeze which lacks the strength to penetrate this far in land.

The European honey bees have been enjoying this hot summer and on that hot Wednesday morning there were plenty of worker bees enjoying the cooler air on the outside of the hive. It was probably quite warm to hot inside the hive boxes! Bees are very clever insects and they are able to maintain a constant temperature inside the hive by co-ordinating their activities, so in all likelihood the bees on the outside of the hive box were probably fanning fresh cooler air into the centre of the hive.

The rest of the Wednesday was hot too. By Wednesday evening, the air temperature cooled down a bit. And by Thursday, a gentle rain fell for the entire day and then every day since then a little bit of rain has fallen. It looks as though the endless summer has finally left the building! And the wildlife that lives on the farm spent much of that Thursday enjoying the rain rather than sheltering from it, as they usually would (with the notable exception of the kangaroos which seem to enjoy being drenched with the rain).

The recent rain has coincided with the Jerusalem artichokes producing their flowers and they now look to me like giant daisy flowers.

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