Spring's JavaConfig and CustomScopeConfigurer issue

I'm seeing some odd behavior, I was hoping someone here can shine some light on the issue.

Let me start by describing my setup. First, a simple data object

public class Apple {
    private String name;
    public Apple withName(String name) {
        this.name = name;
        return this;
    }
    public String getName() {
        return name;
    }
}

And a test class..

@RunWith(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.class)
@ContextConfiguration(classes={TestConfig.class})
public class AppleTest {
    @Autowired private Apple apples;

    @Test
    public void simpleTest() {
        System.out.println("OBJ: "+apples);
    }
}

The config is as follows

@Configuration
public interface ConfigInterface {
    public Apple getApple();
}

With an implementing class

@Configuration
@Import(AbstractTestConfig.class)
public class TestConfig implements ConfigInterface {
    public Apple getApple() {
        return new Apple().withName("Granny apples");
    }
}

With the config dependency...

@Configuration
public class AbstractTestConfig {
    @Autowired ConfigInterface conf;

    @Bean Apple myTestApple() {
        return conf.getApple();
    }
}

All of this works great. I run the test, I see the output I expect. But then I throw a spanner into the wheel and modify AbstractTestConfig to look as follows.

@Configuration
public class AbstractTestConfig {
    @Autowired ConfigInterface conf;

    @Bean Apple myTestApple() {
        return conf.getApple();
    }

    // NEW CODE
    @Bean CustomScopeConfigurer scopeConfigurer() {
        return new CustomScopeConfigurer();
    }
}

And all of a sudden the @Autowired object conf is null when it is required to construct the Apple bean.

Even more odd, if I move the CustomScopeConfigurer