Go Bees, Go!
This week’s relatively warm, clear forecast is good news for the bees in my valley. They have been flying for a few days now, despite bouts of overcast mist, diligently […]
Category Archives: What’s blooming?
What’s Blooming? August 10, 2017
August is the true test season for my pollinator-minded garden. The blackberry blooms that helped fill hives in June are now fat, sweet berries, beginning to fill our bellies and […]
The good swarm
I discovered an unexpected benefit to negligence when a very large swarm found some of my equipment sitting around unoccupied. The hive bodies stacked in my yard awaiting a fresh […]
Flying at last!
Yesterday’s mild temperatures saw the first bee flights in my valley for many days. I also saw my first bumblebee queens of the year–two separate species right on this colony’s […]
What’s Blooming, October 2, 2016
This week we are fortunate to have a special guest writer, pollinator enthusiast Anne Schatz, contributing to the bloom record. Anne has been a Master Gardener since 2008. She is […]
What’s Blooming? September 15, 2016
It’s really satisfying to the gardener in me to have planted a plot that is buzzing with bees in mid-September. In spite of light frosts and our normal late-summer drought, […]
Fun with Queens
In the course of making my inspections over the past couple of weeks, I noted that my largest, strongest colonies still had significant drone populations. In my little valley, we […]
