Ending Now...

Emperors are now definitely winding down at Knepp. I suspect they'll be almost impossible to find by Wednesday. 

I'm heading home tomorrow evening - but I've got one last trick up my sleeve, I'm flying off to the eastern (Catalan) Pyrenees to work a colony 1300m up, which is only just starting to emerge now!

Today, I struggled to see five females and eight frayed males at Knepp, all of them pensioners. The sap bleed branch in a spot known as Skinhead Alley (it's a good spot for violent males) was being visited by four females -

Note the hornet on the right. Fresh Emperors beat the hornets up, but old one's get displaced by them.

This is what I'm worried about: massive fall of sub-canopy leaves in the Knepp sallow thickets (these bushes are about 15 years old, in what was an arable field, the older sallows in the laggs and close to the ponds are fine) -

I'm worried because there are at least five days of >30C temperatures to come, and no rain is forecast (it last rained at Knepp on 31st May).