BEES

I am really excited today, the bee house I ordered a few days ago arrived this morning and it's a beauty. In the past I have made bumble bee homes from old logs with holes bored in or cut lengths of bamboo, the new bee house is a Roils Royce in comparison with my humble efforts.
It came ready assembled and is heavy enough not to blow over and it looks good in the garden, I am quite thrilled with it.
I have positioned it to catch the morning sun in the front garden where it can be seen from the living room window. Raised on two bricks and sheltered by some flowering shrubs it will I hope attract a good many inhabitants this summer.
Our garden is always full of bees as it has been planted with their needs in mind, on a summers afternoon when the lavender bushes are in flower there are thousands gathering pollen, and we have a number of species from honey bees carder bees and bumble bees of all sizes. Even in January we have a couple of winter flowering shrubs to provide a nip of nectar to the odd early bee on a sunny day. At the moment the orchard is full of primroses and narcissus, celandine and violet with the promise of a good carpet of bluebells under the apple tree and lots and lots of forget-me-nots.

In the ancient wall that borders the orchard masonry bees make their homes in quite large numbers and in an old lime tree at the bottom of the garden there is a honey bee nest which has been there for five or six years now. Every year for as long as we have lived here we get a swarm of bees in the garden during mid summer.. it is almost as if they see or smell all the flowers and instantly apply their brakes and land usually in a large pyracantha at the top of the garden. Fortunately a local bee-keeper can be relied upon to come at once to collect these visitors and he always gives us a jar of honey in exchange which is splendid.
This morning I checked on the honey bees in the tree and was delighted to see them very busy indeed, I am always anxious about them in harsh winters but they seem very resilient.

All around small flowers are opening, we have a bed of purple and red pulmonaria in full flower just now and the red nettle in the orchard has spread well this year.
As you can see I love bees and I like to think that they like me as I have handle many bees and have never been stung. There is an old country saying that bees will never sting an idiot, Perhaps it's true!