Monday, April 6, 2015

Blogging for Bees: What I Saw in My BackYard Today


I have about four more weeks of heavy slogging in this process of writing a book, and so although I am exhausted, I do feel hopeful. Thanks to all the people who have been helping me through this intense birthing process. It's time to start blogging more often and gardening again, which I am REALLY looking forward to this year. I am challenging myself to blog as often as I can over the next four weeks in anticipation of being (somewhat) liberated from my computer after that. So here we go, blogging for bees!

Today's bee is a Vozzy queen sipping nectar at these large pink rhodo flowers. I saw a Griseocollis queen out yesterday which is very early for that species here, so I wonder if she was awakened early by someone's enthusiastic gardening, that may have disturbed her hibernaculum. I know gardeners in Vancouver are itching to get their hands in the compost, so they may find a sleepy queen looking for a new home for the year. After some consideration, I have decided to create an artificial nesting site for bumblebees in my garden with this simple design from the Bumblebee Conservation Trust and Hartley-Botanic in the UK. It looks like it may work well, but I'm already suspicious that skunks and raccoons could easily dig out the nest and I'm trying to think about how that could be prevented.









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