I always relax a little when my willow starts to flower, as it marks the beginning of decent quantities of nectar and pollen for my bees. I have quite a few varieties of willow, and the first to flower here is Salix daphnoides, the violet willow. Not only does it flower early, but the shoots are the colour of damsons, and with the same ‘bloom’. Last year, my willow didn’t start to produce until much later in the month, probably because we had bad weather quite late. The two links here are to articles that I wrote at the time. Busy Bees. Willow Pollen.
This year, I noticed that there were a few catkins that had started to change from white to yellow two days ago, but no sign of any bees. The picture below shows the first of the catkins as it changes.
The silver hairs are what the catkin is like before it starts to produce, and the yellow bits are the individual flowers within the catkin. Each flower produces nectar and pollen, but do not appear to be open yet.