Sunday Bee Safari

Here are some photos from my bee safari today starting at VanDusen gardens with the elegant Triliums.

And I LOVE this cutie patootie in the Siberian squill. Can you see the little grains of blue pollen on the bee's leg? Do you know how difficult it is to take photos of Siberian squill? I suffered for this photo! Plant these high up in your stepped garden so you can go underneath the flowers to take the photos.

I think this bee is a little too small for the flower. She took a long time trying to acess the nectar and she hasn't collected much pollen.

Aren't you in love with currants right now?

The crab apple blossoms and cherry trees were surrounded by clouds of all kinds of bees in different sizes, especially now that the queen bumblebees are foraging beside the tiniest of bees.

I need help identifying this tree in Oak Meadows park, but it was also full of bees.

But the bee plant of the day was this spirea. Whenever I see the name "spirea" I know it's going to be a good bee plant and the blossom density on this beauty was unsurpassed in the gardens today. It's right near the 37th street entrance to VanDusen Gardens, so you don't even have to pay to  get into the garden to see it: Hybrid Bridalwreath (Spirea x cinerea).

I took this photo of the shooting star to illustrate how similar it is to the morphology of cranberry blossoms. Please let me know if you see cranberries in bloom as I plan to head out to the fields to take photos.