4 ms·
I unwittingly disturbed a solo bumblebee who made his winter home in my compost pile. I wasn't quite sure what I came across, I'd unearthed a wildly vibrating
by peteradio 4y ago
I unwittingly disturbed a solo bumblebee who made his winter home in my compost pile. I wasn't quite sure what I came across, I'd unearthed a wildly vibrating ball of fine fluff, once I teased it apart out flew a big ol' bumblebee. I've got dozens of bumblebees around my yard this part of the summer as our comfrey goes to flower. I believe they winter among my raspberries where its basically an undisturbed hugelkultur mound. Besides bumblebees and carpenter bees I'm pretty much unaware if I'm looking at a wild bee or some type of fly. There are at least a dozen probably closer to two dozen different bee/fly species on the raspberries alone this time of year. I also see honeybees but they stick to the clover, I will see more of them when sunflowers and stonecrop flower. I feel very fortunate to see that kind of variety, we even get monarch butterflies enough to cause the branches to move under their collective weight, I wasn't aware that happened outside of Mexico.
- hinkley 4y agoSometimes I just stand at arm's length and lean over an stare for a bit. The bees in such cases are too busy to bother with you (and indeed I've used this exercise as exposure therapy for myself and two kids who were all previously nervous around bees) and seeing three or four species in a five minute span, you can start to tell them apart in a way you won't get if you spread that duration out over a month. Lavender and rosemary are very good stages in this regard, roses and the whole rose family (including blackberries, apples, cherries) are also good. If you're on the west coast the ceanothus bush is pollinator paradise.