Jelly Belly Bees in Vancouver

 I perceive that we are in the middle of what beekeepers would call a high summer nectar flow. The honeybees are really ramping up their foraging and some late season native bees are also highly active. This is a tiny native bee in a thread leaf coreopsis flower at 9:45 am. It has a really big head in proportion to its body and I think it's scopa is located soley on the abdomen, making it a member of the megalachidae family. It was a very methodical bee, circling around from floret to floret sipping nectar, with a bit of wiggling up and down in the abdomen. I find that the megalachide tend to have very mobile abdomens, which makes sense as it is their means of gathering pollen. Megachilidae have been nicknamed "jelly belly" bees because of the bright patches of pollen on their bellies. In my little one foot diameter patch of coreopsis there were at least two of these bees.

You can see here her legs are quite thin-looking and not fluffy and coated with pollen as is the case with some small native bees. Her antennae are down and she is incredibly focused.

 I have been researching European wool carder bees, since they have moved in to my garden and monopolized the wooly lamb's ear plant (Stachys Byzantina). You can see it here in a dry, sunny spot behind my rhubarb.

 I watched the bees in the morning and when the plant was in the shade they hung out on the neighboring borage leaves to catch the sun, but as soon as the sun warmed the lamb's ear they were in like Flynn. Honey bees and bumble bees tend to go around and pollinate all the flowers on one plant but these carder bees would take a sip from one flower and then fly up over my roof and away. Males would hang out on the leaves and wait to defend their territory. They will bump other bees out of the flowers. Meanwhile the much smaller female bees were quietly rubbing the fur off the stems. You can see in this photo of the leaf patterns of fluff removal. You may even find this fluff in your mason bee condo.

The flowers of stachys are unassuming, but they are similar to this bee plant that's blooming now: dragonshead.

I noticed this lovely mass of creeping germander along a neighbor's sidewalk which has a similar morphology in the blossoms but lacks the fuzz on the foliage. I did see some wool carder bees in these plants too.

Here's another plant with purple flowers with bilateral symmetry of the about the same size as the stachys and germander: a sage I didn't save the name of. . . I bought it on a whim and the bumble bees and honey bees love it.

 After my daily bee-watching, I set off to the Kits Farmer's market in search of millet stems. I found some millet in this bouquet at Choices Market on 16th. It comes with a free honey bee!

This organic bouquet is from Bathtub Gardens in Pemberton which is the same flower stall that sells the millet stems at Kits Market! I rushed to the market, got there five minutes before it closed and bought some beautiful millet. Who did I happen to meet, but the lovely busy bee artist Holly Schmidt who was meeting with Alexander McNaughton to concoct their next tasting at the Burnaby Art Gallery as part of Holly's project: The Moveable Feast.

Why was I chasing down millet? Well, that's the story for my next blog post. Hint: It's to do with the current Earth Art Show at VanDusen Gardens.

UBC Farm Bee Plants

 There is a new series of herb beds at UBC farm which are bee magnets. Check out this sleepy native bee in the leaf of an anise hyssop plant.

 Oops, I accidently woke the bee up. See how the antennae perked upwards?

 I love the different types of monarda blooming at the farm. The butterflies will enjoy these pink varieties.

 These red monarda are hummingbird magnets.

 Here's the anise hyssop plant. I recently read that these plants are not as invasive as other mints. I think planting them in these little raised beds is still a great idea. I noticed they were selling herb starts at the market as well, which is a great way of spreading bee plants around the city.

 This is a little installation in the Landed Learning Garden. I love how the colors in the yarm pick out the colors in the poppies and nasturtiums.

 We noticed that the trellis is protecting an asparagus bed. Sweet!

 Here's what the lucky CSA folks are getting this week.

 I bought some of these blueberries and had them tonight with (GMO free!) cheesecake from Mobius coffee shop--awesome!

 I had to buy some garlic, of course.

 UBC Farm has the best salad greens in the west.

I love how the colors pop in these radishes.

Now after seeing this plant at UBC Farm for many years I think I have identified it as true hyssop. Unfortunately is has been crowded out by this new bush, but I hope we can save seeds and replant some of it, because it's a plant I don't see very often.

Be sure to come out next Saturday for a bee-themed market with lots of family activities and a chance to meet the Queen Bee!

As High as a Bumble Bee's Eye

Is it my imagination, or are the bumble bees in my back garden singing their "happy times" tunes? There are so many great options for pollen and nectar for the bumble bees right now as their families grow. As I was taking the bus along Nanaimo to Main Street I noticed many hollyhock plants standing upright near fences in glorious full bloom. My own hollyhocks have just begun to open: dark chocolatey single blooms with stamens loaded with straw-colored pollen. The mallow flowers in my yard (real hardy perennials) are all in bloom. I noticed the Spirea plants are flowering all over town. They have a lovely soft, fluffy texture and are one of my favorite bee-watching plants. One of my sunflowers has just opened and its lower petals have a dusting of excess pollen. The cornflowers are in bloom, along with Centaurea, Campanula, California poppies, and some Oriental poppies. My nasturtiums are producing their peppery flowers faster than we can eat them. I am starting to freeze the bounty of the raspberry bushes. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention: the cherries are ripe!!!!!! Yahoo! I bought some lovely Montmorency sour cherries at the Burnaby Farmer's Market from Upper Bench Organics and I'm heading to UBC Farm on Saturday, July 28 for some more sour cherries from Jobst-Hof Orchard. That also happens to be the date of a bee-themed UBC Farm Market and yours truly will be appearing as HRH Queen Bee.

On a curious note, I am currently nursing a fledgling pigeon under our back porch. He still has some residual baby bird fluff and might have bunged up his leg falling out of the nest. So far, the neighborhood cat has decided not to mess with him. For the record, I am not a fan of pigeons per se, but this little guy has such an engaging personality I had to intervene and try to help him survive. Peter says we should make soup out of him. Ech.

Leapin' Lupins!

I am really excited about the new bee gardens project that EYA is creating. I decided to pop out to Oak Meadows Park adjacent to VanDusen Gardens to help plant a bee garden. The park has a lovely natural meadow feel to it. Here we are lookin' at lupins.

 Lupins are a plant much loved by bumble bees. Here you can see the playing fields of Eric Hamber High School to the north of the park.

I was watching a little bumble bee peacefully pollinating a lupin and a bright neon yellow crab spider popped out and grabbed the bumble bee.

Some crab spiders can actually change color to mimic the flower. I should have opened up a blossom so we could see what color the interior looks like.

Needless to say, this poor bee didn't see what was coming and he was zapped with venom. The spider will take the bee to a convenient perch and suck it dry. Bye bye bee.

Bees and Wannabees

 Why do insects visit flowers? Well, there are several reasons. This bumble bee has tucked himself into a peony to have a lovely nap. When the sun faces the blossom and warms up the ambient temperature, the bee will wake up and begin foraging. This peony is not a great example of a pollen or nectar rich plant. It's too frilly and frou frou, but it makes a luscious sleeping chamber. Don't you wish you could crawl up inside a fragrant peony blossom?

 This is a bumble bee sipping nectar from an aster at the Simon Fraser school garden. You can see her tongue getting right into the florets to sip the sweet liquid.

The blue-eyed widow grass was bereft of bees. Hmmm. I guess that means the nectar wasn't flowing at that point.

 A cabbage butterfly sips nectar from a strawberry flower.

 Another bee sips nectar from a chive blossom. Wonder what that tastes like?

 Look at the orange pollen on the legs of this bumble bee inside a Geum avens. Her suitcases are packed!

 Another reason insects visit flowers is to mate. While weeding the garden we observed two ladybugs "making hay" while the sun was shining.

 

 Here's a small native bee scrambling for pollen inside a perennial poppy.

Here is a  photograph of what appears to be two bees mating on a tree trunk. However, since honeybees mate with the queen in the air, and bumble bees mate on the ground, I'm guessing these two are flies who mimic bees. It's hard to tell from the photo, but I think these are Bombilious major. Wait a minute . . . I see that online photos of those flies show them mating back to back! I guess these must be some form of syrphid flies. Ach! Where's an entomologist (with a macro lens) when you need one?

Kits Gardens

 

One thing that helps to make me happy is exploring the gardens of Kitsilano. Some of the color combinations are really inspiring, like these arnica blossoms beside a dark grey fence.

 Now take a look at the awesome burgundy foliage on this plant. It looks like Sweet Cicely. Does anyone know what it is?

For your daily dose of bee watching, I recommend the ceonothus bushes that are blooming right now. Usually you can find a whole family of bumble bees feeding together. These bee has a striking red stripe on its abdomen.

Columbines look lovely in the rain.

 I heart cornflowers and their color really works its therapy on a grey day.

I also love this dark iris.

Foxgloves are everywhere now, including the back alleys of Vancouver.

These two trees were meant for a hammock.

Irises really have strong personalities.

 

Jasmine provides the aromatherapy we need on a rainy day.

I dig this decadent planted piano.

Sweet Sunday

 Sundays should be sweet, full of light and cups of tea drunken at leisure in a garden full of spring blossoms. I decided to make individual sticky toffee pudding cups inspired by Sticky, Chewy, Messy Gooey: Desserts for the Serious Sweet Tooth by Jill O' Connor. I picked up a copy in the library because I'm trying to keep my son interested in baking. He browsed the cookbook and said, "There's enough chocolate in that book to kill someone."

This is the first tea party of 2012 chez nous.

 

Tulips, forget-me-nots, rhodos, lilacs, strawberries, clematis, et al.

 Later in the afternoon we were invited over to Catherine and Dave's for Deana's awesome lemon meringue pie. Deana learned this recipe at cooking school and it is a classic, piled high withe ethereal egg whites and garnished with a lemon rose. Much ceremony is made over the cutting of the pie and a phone call to the chef confirmed it must be sliced all at once with a hot straight-edge knife.

Deana had learned to bake the proper way, weighing all the dry ingredients. She searched the neighborhood for a baking scale and ended up making the trip to Zellers to find a digital kitchen scale. Her attention to detail means she's got the makings of a serious baker. We are very lucky to taste the results of her work: tangy, creamy filling and the perfect flaky crust. Here's to more sweet Sundays!