What a difference rain makes!

July 30, 2012

Finally we got some rain in South Western Ontario!  The rain barrels are full, the ground is soft and moist and the garden is looking green again.  I know that the bees are able to forage regardless of the drought conditions but it must be a lot easier for them now.  The weeds around us are doing very well in the dry weather and they are very pretty too.  As Ralph Waldo Emerson says, a weed is "a plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered."  I have discovered that the bees love them.

Chicory all over our front lawn every morning and gone by afternoon...the prettiest blue ever

Honey bee collecting pollen...see the pollen all over her head?

Wild Evening Primrose

Enough of weeds, I must tell you how the bees are doing.

In my quest to get rid of the two deep boxes on Queen Elizabeth and Hippolyta, I had gone into the bees a couple of weeks ago.  I was hoping the frames would be completely full of capped honey so I could extract them and then take the deeps off but to no avail.  Yesterday I tried again and had decided in advance that no matter what I found I would take the boxes off.  The frames weren't completely capped yet but I took them out  and scraped off the capped honey into a nylon screen to let them drip old style into the bucket.  I got almost 5 litres from this effort!  And best of all...no more deep boxes weighing in at 90 lbs!

Yay!  No more deeps!

Not a lot but it's the first honey of the season!

I also went into Queen Latifah and Nefertiti to see if they needed more room.  I'm afraid no pictures were taken since the official photographer got bored with the lack of excitement in the beeyard.  Only Queen Latifah had finished drawing comb on all its frames so she got a new box with all open frames.  Maybe the rain will speed things up in the other hives.  All the hives are slow since they are all have new queens.  They have to work so hard to build up the bee numbers and the combs.  I imagine I won't be extracting honey until the middle of August at the earliest.  But the bees all look good and are as hypnotizing as ever to watch.

I will leave you with some pictures of the garden now.

Morning Glory...pollen spilling out after a visit by a bee

Backlit stand of Rudbeckia

Rudbeckia being visited by a bee

Echinacea backed by artemisia...so pretty!

My next posting might be a little dry (ha ha an unintentional drought joke) as I will try to explain what is going on with the bees and why there are threats to their existence...and what we can do for them.  

I hope your summer is lovely and you are enjoying the nature around you.

What the bees like in my garden

July 12, 2012

I have walked around the garden with my camera to see what the bees are enjoying.  Some pics have a bee in them to prove they truly like this flower but you will have to take my word on the others.  This will give the gardener readers an idea of what to plant if you are interested in attracting honey bees.

Bees love blue-purple coloured flowers the most but there are lots of other flowers they will go to.  The oddest thing is that they don't go to the plant that is named bee-balm.  Perhaps they are confused by the fact that it is also named bergamot, monarda or Oswega tea...the leaves are used to make Earl Grey tea and certainly I can smell that  when I rub the leaves.

Monarda or bergamot or Oswega tea or bee-balm

Other purple plants that they do love are salvia, sage, basil, oregano, chives, thyme, echinacea, milk weed, anise hyssop, Russian sage and perennial geranium.  There are tons more but these are what are in my garden right now.

Sage

Anise hyssop--they love it!

Perennial geranium

Thyme

Echinacea

Milkweed...also loved by Monarch butterflies

Oregano

Salvia with a butterfly (no idea what kind)

So many other flowers are visited by the bees such as the hydrangea bush, the trumpet vine, butterfly bush, spirea bush, cosmos, euphorbia and hostas to name a few.  The best plant for bees is clover...red, white and yellow.  Clover has very nutritious pollen and great nectar.  People love clover honey...it is very light in flavour and almost white in colour.  Planting clover instead of grass is a great idea...not only for the bees but also because this plant puts nitrogen back into the soil.

White clover

Red trumpet vine

Hosta--Elegans

Euphorbia in a pot with geraniums

Cosmos

Hydrangea

Mullein flower

Mullein stand

They don't seem to like day lilies and dahlias but I love them so I will continue to plant them in my garden.

During my walk we had a flash thunder shower (thank fully it filled all the rain barrels).   Here is a photo of the day lilies so despised by the bees and also one of  graffitti on a train across the street.   The word "dark" seemed to connect with the storm.

Daylily

After the storm

The rain barrels are almost empty again and the grass is getting crispy.  I hope that the flowers are still producing nectar and pollen for the bees to collect.  Drink lots of fluids and find a shady, cool spot to get away from that unrelenting blue sky!