(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
 . . . . . . . . . .



The Daily Bucket - bees in flowers [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags']

Date: 2022-08-18  

Honeybee descending on artichoke

August is high summer in the Pacific Northwest. Dry and warm. Our spring was exceedingly wet and cool: peas, asparagus, rhubarb, lettuce did very well. The cool weather slowed many things down, like the blueberries, which we’re still eating now, deep into August (blueberry pancakes and blueberry cream scones are favorites). Lettuce is still doing well, only thinking about bolting.

The warm weather crops are late but finally producing. Tomatoes, beans, cucumbers, squash and corn are all ripening beautifully. We’ve been eating daily from the garden. For us this fresh local bounty is a high point of the season, along with the abundance of summer migrants and their fledglings (yay crossbills right now).

Pollinators are also in abundance. They enjoy our garden too — the food plants, the herbs, the decorative flowers.

Honeybees in calendula

It’s fascinating watching the bees work the flowers. Smaller flowers fit only one bee at a time, like the calendula, and they bump each other out. Bigger flowers allow multiple pollinators at once, like sunflowers (I have several black-oil volunteers). The artichoke is the most mesmerizing to observe. Bumblebees and honeybees climb down into the field of flowers and burrow around. You don’t notice them in a still photo but in a video:

.

That purple! It would be worth letting the artichokes go to seed just for that, but the legions of bees getting fed makes it altogether a very happy spot in the garden on a warm summer afternoon.

We have just that one artichoke plant. It’s a perennial, and being a composite with deep roots, doesn’t take much care or water, so why not.

Not sure what kinds of bumblebees are visiting the artichoke — hard to see them!



Bumblebee on quick transit

🐝

THE DAILY BUCKET IS A NATURE REFUGE. WE AMICABLY DISCUSS ANIMALS, WEATHER, CLIMATE, SOIL, PLANTS, WATERS AND NOTE LIFE’S PATTERNS. WE INVITE YOU TO NOTE WHAT YOU ARE SEEING AROUND YOU IN YOUR OWN PART OF THE WORLD, AND TO SHARE YOUR OBSERVATIONS IN THE COMMENTS BELOW. FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE PURPOSE AND HISTORY OF THE DAILY BUCKET FEATURE, CHECK OUT THIS RECENT DIARY: DAILY BUCKET PHENOLOGY: 11 YEARS OF RECORDING EARTH'S VITAL SIGNS IN OUR NEIGHBORHOODS

🐝

Partly cloudy and calm in the PacificNorthwest islands today. Warm (for us): 60s overnight, 70s in the daytime. However days are shortening noticeably. Alder leaves are starting to fall. Bees and garden crops are “making hay while the sun shines”.

WHAT’S UP IN NATURE IN YOUR AREA TODAY?

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/8/18/2117413/-The-Daily-Bucket-bees-in-flowers

Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/