Our immediate neighbour, who moved in a year ago or so, keeps #bees. Sometimes, they swarm in our #garden. I don’t think there’s any danger but I think it’s wise to keep a safe distance from them. They eventually disperse on their daily foraging. Here, they’ve commandeered the #vine#plant.
Native bee trying to warm up on a Romneya petal. Today, we're almost 10F below average and expecting heat wave in a few days. Bee is possibly a Melissodes.
My neighbour is very elderly. Her son comes three times a week to kill everything that dares to try and live in her garden. This year so far he has sprayed weedkiller twice and today he arrived with a flame gun. He absolutely hates my side of the fence and constantly complains about "weeds". I think he is the weed. #flowers#wildlife#birds#bees#desert
Checked out a beehive today that went from 4 frames on April 21st to 10 extra full frames today.. they are in growth mode right now here in my part of Southern California. Producing honey, too. #bees#beekeeping
"There’s [a] downside of resuming mowing after May. #Bees are... clever creatures that can learn where flowers are in their environment (your garden). This...is called “flower constancy”, & is critical to how #honeybees & bumblebees survive. When the wild patches are cut...all the energy & effort the bees have put in to learning where to find these #flowers is wasted."
Turns out bee are like livestock: humans breed them at a rate proportional to how much money they can make from it. We move billions of bees to California to pollinate almonds every year, and about half die from it.
Wealthy Wall St. investors own a lot of CA almond farms: they took their money out of stock during the 2008 financial crisis, bought land in California, and paid people to plant almond trees.
With that much money on the line, there's a strong financial incentive to breed more #bees
Butterflies, bees, bugs and more: The summer of insect-counting gets underway in Germany.
AP reports on the country's "'insect summer,' now in its seventh year, organized by the country’s Nature And Biodiversity Conservation Union, or NABU."