The Humble Honey Bee
OK, I’ve got to make a confession. I hadn’t realised quite how gorgeous the humble honey bee actually was until today.
Just look at it! cute as a button! (come on guys admit it, you know you want to!)
The honey bees were going mad for the last of the geranium flowers. Almost fighting over them.
Just three dying flowers left and every one of them with a honey bee, if not two.
So let’s hear it for Apis mellifera the honey bee.
We MUST do everything in our powers to stop this creature from dying out.
What will I be doing?
I’ll be planting a lot more bee friendly plants in my garden next spring to give these critters as much spring/summer/autumn nosh as they can manage.
Has anyone got any spare geranium?
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Exceptional photos!
Many thanks HalfPondBees!
When watching them, you can really understand why the term “busy bees” came about! Nice captures Jane.
Thanks Tricia. I haven’t been blogging much over the summer but I’m getting back into it now! I’ve been a busy-bee myself
There’s a post at http://vegplotting.blogspot.com/2009/08/flowers-for-bees-vps-dozen.html which lists a lot of flowers that are good for bees. Apparently Rosemary is particularly good because it flowers well into the winter, so can give them something when there’s little else around. I don’t know if it will flower in my winter (near the Alps) but I’m going to give it a try!
Thanks for this link. Really useful. I’ve had lots of lavender in the garden this year and they are loving that. More herbs next year then!
Wow, nice shots! I do my best with my little balcony! Here in Italy, apparently the bees are really suffering from the extreme heat, and hardly have the strength to fly around..I saw it on the news last night…let’s hope it cools off – for everyone!
I don’t often wish for rain… but maybe you could do with some at the moment, and it would help your little bees! Funny to think you are reading this from a balcony in Italy. The internet is so cool sometimes!
Funny you should mention honey bees as I was just thinking the other day that I’d seen quite a few here, in contrast to the apparent national trend. There is a “professional” bee-keeper in the village here (i.e. sells the honey). I also found a “wild” nest in a hole in an ash tree a few years back; it kept going for about 4 years before the bark re-grew, closing the entrance hole. I wonder if there was some emergency emmigration or if one day they just found that they couldn’t get out?
Yes, me too. I’m wondering if numbers are actually up this year nationwide. I haven’t seen any figures for 2009. I’ve never seen a wild nest although I was sitting in my sister’s garden (Lower Blandford St Mary) last year and a swarm of bees came over. You could hear them coming from hundreds of metres away! I must admit we ran for it…
…and I love this set of photos too! Still sad I didn’t manage to box my swarm. Ah well…
Thanks. Yes, still sad that you didn’t get your swarm. Next time!