The bees are out in force on all of the dandelions in our yard. We have quite a patch behind the house- literally hundreds of dandelions. Let's hope I do a better job of keeping bees than I do of keeping a nice lawn.
Before I get to the photos of the bees and dandelions I will catch up with what has been going on around here. Back on April 22nd a bunch of bushes with pink blossoms and a few trees also with pink blossoms started to bloom. (I started an Excel spreadsheet to keep track of all my bloom dates. I am hoping that over the years this will help me be more prepared for what is coming.) Since Georgia was pretty full of pollen brood and honey I added the queen excluder and a medium super on April 24th. Shortly after this the weather turned south. We had several days of wind and cold (down to 24 degrees one night) and even a couple of days of snow. I was disappointed that the bees were unable to get out and take advantage of those blossoms. A few other fruit trees have popped out in blossoms, the apple trees are close, and the crabapple trees shouldn't be too far behind them. So we are close to some good nectar flows, but right now we have dandelions!
Here are some photos that I took this afternoon. The bees were everywhere! I had to pay attention to where I was kneeling to make sure I didn't squish any bees. These pictures aren't great, but I love taking pictures of my girls!
See the proboscis extending down to find the nectar.
I don't know what the problem here was. There were plenty of blossoms for everyone.
She has her head down sucking up the sweet nectar.
Sucking up the nectar again. Looks like she really had to go deep.
That is a pretty pollen sack, Don't you think?
Another one diving in
If you look closely through the petals just below the bees head you can see her proboscis extending down to get the nectar.
0 comments:
Post a Comment