I appreciate the honeybees that visit my garden

Isn't she beautiful!

All the honeybees we see foraging for nectar and pollen are female and unless we keep hives we'll probably never see a male bee.

The worker honeybees' jobs include: caring for larvae (baby bees), making wax, building honeycomb, cleaning up the hive, storing pollen, cooling the hive, making honey, guarding the hive and collecting pollen and nectar. They are busy little creatures and I feel fortunate that they stayed still long enough for me to snap a few photos!

I appreciate that they pollinate flowers as they forage for pollen and nectar. I also have a fine appreciation for their honey making abilities! 

Which brings me around to yesterday morning when I noticed this pink sign in a neighboring yard.

Of course I called! 

I stopped by last night to meet Jodi the beekeeper and her bees. What a delightful surprise! She and her husband Matt are native plant gardeners! They're removing invasives! They've built a rain garden to solve their water drainage problems! They have hives!

Hillwood is lucky to have them! I am lucky that they live around the corner from me.

Of course, you all know that my beloved Bumbles and other native bees are first and foremost in my heart, but, a gardener has to get honey and what could be better than honey made by bees that might have visited my garden!

Now that's sweet!
Have a honey of a weekend...
xoxogail

It's your garden, plant what ever you want and please, remember to never, ever, ever, ever, use pesticides. I mean never!

In case you want to read earlier pollinator posts~

Now Is The Time To Bee-gin Thinking About Bees ( here)
This Is The Place To Bee ( here)
If You Could Plant Only One Plant In Your Garden~Don't (here)
Must Bee The Season of The Witch (here)
Go Bare In Your Garden (here)
We can't All Be Pretty Pollinators (here)
Eye, Eye Skipper, Big Eyed Pollinators (here)
What's In Your Garden (here)
Royalty In The Garden~Monarch Butterfly (here)
Carpenter Bees (here)
Got Wildflowers?(here)
It's Spring and A Gardener's Thoughts Are On Pollinators (here)
The Wildflower and The Bee (here)
A Few Good Reasons To Plant Milkweek (here)
Got Shade? You Can Have Pollinators ( (here)
A Pollinator friendly Shrub (here)
Big Goings On at C and L (here)
Where Have All My Pollinators Gone (here)

Other bee posts you might want to read~

Count Yourself Lucky To Have Hoverflies ( here)
Bumblebee Hotel (here)
Still Taking Care Of Bzzness (here)
My Sweet Embraceable You (here)


Gail Eichelberger is a gardener and therapist in Middle Tennessee. She loves wildflowers and native plants and thoroughly enjoys writing about the ones she grows at Clay and Limestone. She reminds all that the words and images are the property of the author and cannot be used without written permission.

Tommies On My Hillside Sing A Spring Song

The Tommies are in bloom!  I wish you were here to see them!  I know they must be making a statement because Mr I Do Not Garden or Blog thinks they look wonderful.

He's right, they do look pretty wonderful.

Just look at that flower, it's covered in golden delicious pollen.

 But, you don't have to take my word for it.

The hillside that has charmed me for decades!

 You might remember my inspiration!  A dream of a hillside with tens of thousands of Tommies.

 I think I've finally found my hill.  It was covered with forsythia and made the entrance to the house feel crowded.  Early last fall we cleared the shrubs and planted  Juniperus virginiana 'Gray Owl', Panicum virgatum 'Northwind',  stone unearthed in the clearing process and of course Crocus tommasinianus.

So far the Tommies are unscathed by the resident rodents!  The hill has perfect drainage, great soil and plenty of sunshine. They just  need one other  thing to insure that they naturalize with ease and

also planted on Tommie Hill

It sure looks to me like the bees are doing their best to make sure there will be more Tommies at Clay and Limestone!
xxoogail

Gail Eichelberger is a gardener and therapist in Middle Tennessee. She loves wildflowers and native plants and thoroughly enjoys writing about the ones she grows at Clay and Limestone. She reminds all that the words and images are the property of the author and cannot be used without written permission.

Dear Gardening Friends,

Honeybees refuse to pose for photos

I wish you had been with me in the garden on Monday afternoon.  It was a lovely warm fall day and the ex-asters were dancing in the breeze, while honeybees flew from flower to flower in their mad dash to gather as much pollen as possible before the cold weather arrived.

 At this time of year the garden is a sea of blue asters that attract every pollinator you can imagine~Bumbles, Flower Flies, Green Metallic Bees, wasps, skippers and butterflies. But, this year the honeybees have outnumbered all the other visitors.

I love the Bumbles and other native bees that live in my garden, but, seeing the honeybees in such large numbers made my heart soar with joy.

Could it be that these bees belong to the young family with bee hives, chickens and a great big garden who live  a few streets over? It's exciting to think that clay and limestone's flowers are  contributing to their  honey supplies.

Maybe I should drop them a post card~

They might like that, I know I would.
xxoogail