My gardens are the lively and
messy kind - cheerful, carefree, and sometimes sprawling! I
don't feed these poor flowers, nor do I water them except during
droughts. I'm sure they'd benefit from food and water, but they
are reliable and steadfast with very little attention.
I thought I'd share a few pictures here of the changing landscape. Bumble bees just established a colony in my carport. I've never hosted a city of bumble bees, and it was important to identify them as bumble bees and not carpenter bees. This site at the University of Kentucky helped a lot. It seems likely that what I have are Bombus Impatiens or Bombus Affinis. It's difficult to tell the difference between a Bumble Bee in flight and a Carpenter Bee in flight except for their habits. Carpenter bees tunnel into weathered or unpainted wood (usually the siding or fascia boards of your house!). Male carpenter bees are aggressive but do not sting. They can be recognized by their black shiny abdomens (what we would call the BACK). The Bumble Bee has a hairy abdomen and a smaller head. Bumble Bees are social bees who live in colonies. Carpenter bees are solitary, with one female per nest. Here are close up photographs of both: http://www.patsabin.com/garden/compare.html . Bee experts say that bumble bees will not sting unless their lives are threatened, and if they buzz around, they just want to smell me to determine if I have nectar (I don't). I'm trusting these experts, and am going to try to cohabit with this multi-generational colony of bumble bees through the season. I'll keep you posted on this situation, but I can tell already that they love my red, white and blue RE/MAX signs a little too much! CLICK HERE TO GO TO
THE FIRST GARDEN SCENE
Thanks so much for visiting. Please come back again soon! LINKS TO INTERESTING INFO ABOUT BEES What's Buzzing In My Garden? Bumble Bee Identifier Bumble Bee Pages (behavior, life cycle, etc) Bumble bees (Washington State Univ.) PDF File Bumble Bees and Pesticides Garden Safari. Net (be sure to tour Hania's other photo galleries) GARDENING IN GEORGIA AND THE SOUTHEAST UNITED STATES Public Gardens In Georgia Flowering Perennials in Georgia Daylily Search and Discussion Forum Links to Growers Daylily Forum at GardenWeb Gilbert Wild and Sons Alcovy Daylilies (near Covington) Georgia Perennial Plant Association Magical Garden - Garden Ornaments Back
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