Bee Flowers

Sigh!  So much to do.  So little time.  That's the story of our lives at this time of year.  The summer gardening season is in full swing.  Tom is busy from daylight to dark and, while I don't do a lot of the hard, labor-intensive work, there is always something to do.  As a result, I don't have a lot of time to spend on this blog.

I tend to take pictures with my phone as I go about my daily chores.  Then, at some point, I load them on my computer and ask myself, "Is there a blog in these somewhere?".

Today, as I was looking at the pictures I've taken, I realized there are lots of pictures of bees working over the flowers around the farm.  So, that's what you are going to see today!  Bees, bees and more bees.

I became enamored with the bees earlier this spring when the beekeeper came out and captured a swarm of bees from one of the hives.  I wrote about that in this blog entry:  
Bee Swarm .  Since then, I have taken a new interest in the bees and how they work together for the betterment of the entire hive.

Here is a bee on a kale plant that has begun to flower.  Normally, I would have pulled the kale up at this stage, but after seeing how much the bees liked it, I have left it for them.

And here's one on a blackberry flower.  I believe we are going to have a bumper crop of blackberries this year, partly due to the pollination the bees are providing.

We also have this beautiful Golden Rain Tree in our front yard.

The bees love the flowers.



They like the catmint planted in our front flower bed, too.  The catmint is in the lower right of the picture below.  There is some planted up the steps and in front of our porch, as well.

Here's a closeup of a bee working over the catmint.

I enjoy drinking coffee on the front porch in the mornings.  Needless to say, the audible hum coming from all the bees serves as nice background music as I savor the quiet coolness of the morning.

One of the early spring flowers that blooms in my flower bed is Thread-leaf Blue Star.  Here it is when it was blooming.

This plant provided a valuable source of food for the bees early in the spring when little else was available to them.

Another early-blooming plant that bees are attracted to is clover.  I even mowed around clumps of clover to give them another source of food when not much else was available to them.

I supposed I'm becoming a little eccentric in my old age.....well, maybe a LOT eccentric.  But, hey, I'm retired (from my day job) and I'm loving it!