A collection of bees

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While the world population of bees is in danger, it seems my policy of not caring for the property – in the fashion my neighbours would prefer – has paid off. Every day when I fetch the horses from pasture, it has been buzzing with bumbles, I really should have filmed that during our heatwave, it was deafening. (how am I not getting these ideas at the time of action? I’ve thought about a video diary for quite a while, and yet…) During my little photo adventure the other day I met more bees. Some of them are possibly flies in disguise, I know we have those too.

Interestingly, while all I saw a few weeks ago was a horde of bumble bees, now in the same spots we have an army resembling that handsome fellow above and only 2-3 bumbles at a time. They must have different foraging schedules.

As you can see, the types of flowers we have are slightly different from what you might find in the average wheat, barley or rapeseed field. Borago, red clover, alfalfa, trefoil, burnet, chicory, knapweed, and yarrow among others.

Meanwhile, in a jungle of mint, not a single bee in sight (I do wonder what mint honey would taste like) there were at least 20 of these guys gathered.

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7 thoughts on “A collection of bees

  1. Jeg tror du har en meget glad biavler i nærheden 🙂 I seneste nummer af Praktisk Økologi var der en artikel om de forskellige humlebier. Den er god til at genkende dem efter.

    1. Aner ikke hvem det skulle være – hvor langt flyver de? Et år havde jeg en flok i hækken ved tørrestativet, det var lidt af en udfordring og klipningen af den sektion blev aflyst. Et andet år kom jeg ridende lige midt ind i deres motorvej (teknisk set langsiden på min ridebane), det var lidt specielt at se hele flokken dreje når de kom til et hjørne – nåede at hoppe af og trække væk inden de blev sure.

  2. How beautiful! I find this incredibly heartening. Bumblebees are so rare, now. It’s wonderful to know that there are places where they flourish. x

  3. How wonderful! We have bees, including bumbles, come to our tiny garden – they especially love the rosemary – and I often dream of how it would be if I had a really good space for long grass and wildflowers. Thank you for letting the wild grow, and nurturing the bees and butterflies. If only more people were like you.

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