Liquid gold behind paper thin walls
Tag: bees
So I went on a Bee Hunt today, with my 4 year old brother.
And it was honestly the most magical thing ever.A bee landed on a flower I had held, and it was amazing.
And touching.
And I’m so happy today. The kind of happy I haven’t felt in a long time.
Nourish yourself with grand and austere ideas of beauty that feed the soul…
Another lovely shot of the common but still lovely Andrena cressonii. Thanks to Erick Hernandez for the photography
Bees are small. It doesn’t take that much pollen and nectar to raise a baby bee. One clump of flowers is enough to support several bees. Look around. Are you supporting flowers….and bees. Question lawns.
Number 23. In the KNOW YOUR WILD BEES CAMPAIGN
To make more bees!!
I’m a beekeeper for the bees, so my real goal is to replenish the local population of wild and kept bees~
If they swarm and find a good home, they’ll double the bee output of the hive (because they’ll be two hives) so therefore more bees! X3
Hi. I just mowed my lawn cause the real estate sent us a letter about it cause it was slightly overgrown and it made me feel bad cause there were so many bees out there enjoying the weeds. I”m trying to think of what I can do for the bees that won’t eventually get mowed down. Do you think I can put clover and dandelion in some kind of box? Since they’re weeds I’m not sure whether that’s pragmatic…
As long as the majority of your lawn on the road/path side is mowed and clear, generally you are able to plant anything close to your house. What I would do in that case is get a bag of clover seeds and pick lots of dandelion seeds and make little raised planters close to my house. I have turned to lavender and basil for my bee feeding lately because clover has a hard time growing here and these plants typically aren’t considered weeds so I can grow them anywhere.
I would absolutely love to turn my yard in to a clover yard but I’m not so sure how feasible that would be.So yeah. Plant in “enclosed” or raised areas close to your house and nobody can tell you to do anything. Grow lots of flowers and try to grow plants that flower all summer and maybe even in to the fall. ^^
Flower beds full of wildflowers are great, as are bee watering stations. Bottlebrush trees produce tons of bee-friendly blooms. Sunflowers are excellent. Honeysuckles and Chinese Hedge are also massive bee lures.
^
Seeing Other Hives
On Sunday, we decided to start seeing other hives. Actually, “start” is a slight inaccuracy. As part of the Beekeeper’s Guild, we’ve been helping look after the children’s hives at St. James School for a while now. But Sunday was the first day we started the morning by heading out for a good look.
It was such a calm, windless day (though stinking hot 90˚F/32˚C), it seemed perfect for inspecting, specifically the Layens (we have one of these on our roof at home) and the top bar hives. And we weren’t alone in this thought – two other beekeepers arrived just as we did to check out two other hives: the Warre and the Langstroth. It turned into an impromptu beekeeping party!
And the good news … the hives appear to be doing pretty well. Though on the top bar hive, as you can see, the bees have deployed a cross-combing “art installation”, which we’ve adjusted for them.
I was good to see these hives for many reasons, not the least of which being it gives us another point of reference to evaluate what we have on our roof.
I’m glad to see someone else using a top bar hive like me. I don’t see enough of them around really. Especially ones without foundation angle bar things or siding.
Just found your blog and I love it! However, when I decided to search the bee keeper tag I was a little horrified. There’s so many people on here that insist bee keeping is immoral and evil and I’m like honestly do you not know anything? Is there any other blog you recommend I follow so I don’t have to dive back into all that?
I’ve not really indulged that side of the beekeepery. I don’t know much about what they say or their reasoning, but I can assure you whatever it is, it is 1% fallacy and 99% hot air. From what I know of people online it’s that they’ll do nearly anything for even the slightest bit of attention, so I grant them nothing.
I do however know of quite a few lovely bee blogs that I think you’ll love and I know I do. I’ll add them here once I can leave the answer box without losing all of my content lol.
@fuzzybuttbees @beek-of-the-finch @roofhoney @bee-king @to-be-a-bee @thebeemanuk @thebeeblogger @vashonbees @bee-prepared-to-save-the-bees @naturesalchemist @hatahoney are just a few of the most bee-ish posters that I know of~
Bumblebees Leave ‘Smelly Footprints’ Behind on Flowers
Bumblebees mark the flowers they’ve visited with smelly footprints, and they can tell the difference between odors from family members’ feet and those of strangers, researchers have found.
By sniffing out these dainty footprints, bumblebees can locate good food and steer clear of flowers whose nutrients have been depleted, the scientists reported in a new study.
“Bumblebees secrete a substance whenever they touch their feet to a surface, much like us leaving fingerprints on whatever we touch,” Richard Pearce, a scientist at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom, said in a statement.
Spitfire Alice A Gra 
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