Bees on Basil

Most of my basil has gone to seed.  If you quit picking it, it will do that.  And, I quit picking it because we decided to drop out of the farmers' market during August because of the heat.  Here is what it now looks like.

A couple of days ago, I was out there looking around and doing a little fall cleanup.  I kept hearing this buzzing noise and figured out that it was coming from the basil patch.  Upon close inspection, I found there were hundreds of bees after the small basil flowers!  Here are a couple of pictures I took of them.

This picture also illustrates the way the basil flowers grow.  The plant puts up a long flower stem around which the flowers bloom.  The flowers are not very big as you can see, but the bees appear to love them.