Purple Cone Flower Infatuations

My purple cone-flowers are the insect talk of the town!

They're covered with all sorts of insect, here are just a few -

A fat Bumble-bee -

A Green Sweat Bee, with pollen covered back legs and a Flower Longhorn Beetle -

One of my favorites, a Honey Bee and sadly one of the few I've seen visiting this summer.  In years past there would be oodles of Honey Bees visiting my flowers but the numbers and sightings have been dwindling over the years and this year is concerning -

I could sit for hours and watch these insects flitter from bloom to bloom!

#Blessed

Can You "Beelieve" It?!

The bumblebees are a plenty this summer, sadly that's NOT the case for the Honeybees.

This plump bumblebee is taking advantage of my Petunia plant and flitting from one flower to the next!

"Busy as a bee", as it's said -

A Papier-Mache Basketball

Sort of a find the critter post, first picture anyway...

When mowing the lawn the other evening I noticed something familiar in the grass beneath this red maple.  Knowing full well what it was, I looked up and was shocked to see what I saw!

Approximately 15' up from the ground was this enormous Bald-Faced hornets nest!

I honestly don't recall ever seeing one so BIG!  This dude is BIGGER than a basketball.  As you can see in the picture below, the bottom of the nest is missing a piece.  This is the familiar item that was lying on the ground beneath the tree.  Very distinct and telling that such a nest was nearby but that close was a bit troubling.

I believe, for the most part anyway, that leaving things like critters alone and they'll leave you alone.  Of course it doesn't always work this way, especially with bees.  However, it has been working fine in this case.  Clearly this nest has been there for a while; all summer long, and in that time and to date, I've mowed my lawn 23 times this season so far.  The mowing includes cutting beneath this tree and due to the obstacles around it, there's some jockeying that takes place to get the area cut.  In all those times, as well as weeding and tree limb pruning (yes, from this tree too), I never noticed this nest, nor had any issues from the residents.

All that being said, Bald-Face Hornets are known to be hostile and territorial.  They are sensitive to noise and vibrations and will treat them as threats, retaliating aggressively - SO my ride mower perhaps?!?!

The known diet of the Bald-Faced Hornet includes other insects, spiders and plants. They are omnivorous insects that hunt other bees and eat meats, fruits, and flower nectar. Their favorite snacks are horse flies. So, they're very beneficial to have nearby.

Seems they've not been threatened by me, yet, so seems I've been lucky!

Buuuuuzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!

I noticed the above beehive (literally) of activity when helping my neighbor shuffle some trailers around his garage.  These are Yellow Jackets, rotten good-for-nothing, mean bees, that when riled swarm and attack!  

Good news is, and I can't explain how, but I noticed their comings and goings before anyone got into them or stung.  The bad news is that by the time I noticed them we were already committed and within three or four feet.

We didn't have too many options, as we needed to be in that area to push the larger trailer out, so we continued all the while keeping a eye on the activity.  A couple came too close and we swatted them down and stepped on them.  Bad idea I guess as one bee, and fortunately it was only one, decided stinging me on my face might chase us off, wrong.  Fortunate again that it was me that got stung and not one of the other two I was with, as they're allergic, so no telling what would have happened.

Even though stung and the bees more agitated we continued pushing and got the trailer out and a safe distance away.  Only one stung, 4 or 4 bees killed and our work complete!

Three cans of bee spray have been purchased, so I suspect these SOBees won't be a bother too much longer...

The Honey Is Flowing This Season I'm Sure

We have tons and tons of Honey Bees visiting this summer, which is good news. Bumble Bees and Hummingbirds too!

They're loving most of the flowers that have been and are currently blooming.

A young lady sucking the dew off a lambs ear plant -

Another young lady busily bee-bopping (pun intended) from one flower to the next on our Joe Pye weed flowers -

Now if we could just keep them from falling into the pool and drowing...

Save The Bees!

Speaks for itself

Flowers and Insects

Our echinacea are in full bloom and very inviting treat to many a visiting insect.

A handsome Bumble Bee hard at work - 

A pesky earwig -

A Green Sweat bee covered in pollen and sporting a good size pollen basket on it's rear legs -

A Hover fly taking a rest on this Black-eyed Susan -

Heading Back to School!

Well, I've decided to go back to school.  Apiary school that is!

Classes started the end of January and are scheduled to run ten weeks to the second week of April.  Every Tuesday evening 7:00 - 9:00PM at the local agricultural school.

Fascinating to say the least!

An expensive hobby to get started, and one that requires quite a bit of time.  I can handle the time requirements, it's the cost that I'm not so sure about.  Me thinks I need to find less expensive hobbies.

Someone's Hungry!

A sure sign of Spring!

The Crocuses dotting our yard have begun to open up to add welcome splashes of color.

A double bonus, captured in the pictures above, is the Honey Bee that is already out and about!  We were well into the Spring last year before I saw the first Honey Bee.  This is encouraging for sure!

Close Closer Closest

I believe this is some sort of wasp.

Dude was perched on our bay window this afternoon.  With the glass between us I took the opportunity to get up close and personal.

Yellow Jacket Surprise!

The raised flower bed above is Emilie's.  She chose and planted those flowers, which have done very well this season.  The insects love them too and are typically all over them, especially the bees.

However, the other morning, from my upstairs perch, I noticed a hole that been dug along side and that leads underneath the bed, circled in red.  Upon further investigation and a closer look I realized it's a Yellow Jack entryway!!!  An entryway that was very busy with comings and goings!

I'm guessing the reason the holes so big is because some critter was trying to get at the nest.  A skunk or opossum perhaps.

Interestingly, shortly before noticing this issue, I had just moved the grass in that area and used the push mower too and never noticed a thing.  Thankfully I didn't get stung either.

Well, last night after dark Emilie and I pulled a commando raid on them, shock and awe.  Not really shock and awe but it sounds good right.  I simply took some paper towels soaked in bee spray and pushed them down into the hole then covered with a plastic bag and secured.

Hopefully most of the bees had gone to bed and that this approach will work.  We'll see this AM.

Apiculture, But Not Really...

A cantaloupe sized yellow jacket nest was found under the neighbor's pool bench and boy-o-boy was there a flurry of activity in and around it!

Of course it couldn't be in a worse location.  These dudes are a mean bunch on a good day when they're not being bothered.  Stir them up, even by accident, and watch out!  To boot the neighbor is allergic to bees SO this dude had to go.

Once night-fall set in and the bees went to bed, and we finished our beer, we put our plan in motion.  After everyone was moved off to a safe distance, two of us went over; one with a black plastic bad and one with a light, and simply put the bag around the hive, while the other knocked it off into the bag.  A nice tight knot and we had ourselves a stirred up bag-o-bees a buzzing away!

Success!  Beers all around!

Burning the Midnight Oil of Sorts...

 

Although, it's getting colder and the temperatures are dropping each night there's still plenty of life in the yard.

 

As you can see here our Marigolds are still bursting with color and loaded with oodles and oodles of flowers.

 

Most of the insect are gone; in hiding someplace, however, there are a handful of Bumble Bees out and about.  They're awful slow and lethargic but still enjoying the flowers.  They best finish up and get to their Winter hangout soon or they'll get left out in the cold.

North American Wasp Paper Nest

Check out this basketball sized North American Hornets nest Emilie and I came across, YIKES!

 



 

This abode is hanging over the driveway entrance to the park!  If you were ~8 or 9 feet tall you'd bump into it with you head.  Perhaps, this was a "first build" for the little wasp engineer who designed it.  I don't believe size and weight, as the casa grew, was taken into consideration otherwise they would have chosen a larger branch.

 

 

I pity the fool that unknowingly disturbs these dudes.  With any luck it will be one of the inconsiderate people that visit the park and treat it as if it was there very own.

Bombus Race or Resting?!

Snapped this photo of these two Bumblebees (of the bee genus Bombus) just hanging out on the side of our house this past August.  Generally speaking, I like the Bumblebee along with the Honeybee.  They're both busy little insects and both have a pretty good disposition and tolerance level, unlike the dreaded Yellow-Jacket.

Like the Fritillary Butterflies, there were scads of bees, hornets, wasps, etc. throughout our yard this past summer, all reaping their rewards of pollen from our abundance of flowers and the insects that they attract.

Can You Hear Me Now?

I got myself a good old fashioned bee sting yesterday. First one in a couple of years I'd guess. A doozie too, on the top of my right ear. The stinger and the back-end of the bee was still in place when I got home a couple hours later.

It's nice and swollen and BIG this morning. You'd think I could hear a pin drop from across the room but no such luck. It just looks funny, especially compared to my left ear. Kept me tossing and turning most of the night but now it's beginning to itch.

Actually, I'm lucky to have received the one sting. I was cutting my dad's neighbors lawn yesterday (of course after cutting my dad's lawn) - that's what I do, I spend my Saturday's after a long work week, cutting grass for everyone. Anyway, I was mowing a section I had yet to do in the 7 previous cuttings of this yard, and stirred up one of them in-the-ground-plum-mean-yellow-jacket nests. You know the one's where a gazillion mad-as-heck bees come out swarming and just attacking. I was backing up at the time of the attacked, so perhaps this helped because once I got stung I kept backing up as you can imagine.

Upon further investigating it looks like they've chosen to base of a dead arborvitae for a nest. That's good for them because if I had ability to get the lawn tractor over top of them I would have and done me some bee mulching...

Oh well, one of the risks I suppose.

Bombus on Echinops ruthenicus

But of course! Was there any doubts?



In layman terms, a Bumble Bee on one of our Globe Thistle flowers.

If you look closely you'll see that this dude has been a "busy little bee", as he's covered in pollen. We have oodles of Bumble Bees, but sadly, very few Honey Bees.

No, Not Bees, Wasps!

This here dead Yellow jacket is, well dead. "They" say "payback's a bitch". My vengeance was spurred by the simple and painful fact that this dude stung me! Got me good on the back of my left hand and smack dab on a vein.

Now, typically if left along these buggers won't bother with you, which is what I was doing at the time I got stung. However, at some point prior there may have been some teasing if you will.

You see I discovered these wasps coming and going from outside, what amounts to our second story window, and up against the house. As it turns out these stinging fiends had made their way into the wall of our family room and had setup shop. Somehow they entered where the brick chimney butts up against the house.

Fortunately, for me (I think) and unfortunate for them (definitely) their hole was just outside the crank out Anderson window and about shoulder high. This was perfect, as I could battle them from solid footing and not 15' high while balancing on a ladder.

Interestingly, it was only a couple years ago that we had the same situation in the same wall. I blocked the hole that colony had been using but clearly this wall is prime, upper class Yellow jacket realestate, i.e. Wellesley, MA. However, this new colony was not to be denied and made a new entryway just 2" higher.

Anyway, I opened the window to scope out the area to see what I was faced with and to plan my attack. When all of a sudden a couple of the crazy sumbitches came at me. This one got into the house before I got the window shut and initially landed on my chest but fortunately I was wearing a sweatshirt at the time, which I'm pretty sure saved me from sporting a third nipple. My mistake was shooing it away...with my left hand when all of a sudden OUCHY STING STING occurred. However, the shooing worked in sync with the sting, alas, and the dude was knocked off onto the ledge of the widows where he met his demise.

Naturally, after that incident I tweaked my plan of attack and waited until after dark to seek my revenge/eviction. Once they went to bed and were settled I opened the window and sprayed wasp spray into the hole. I then soaked a cotton ball with the wasp spray and stuffed it into the hole with a small screw driver in the hopes of getting the poison inside the wall for maximum killing effect and finally took a second cotton ball and plugged the hole to prevent anyone from exiting or entering whilst containing the poision inside the wall. Interestingly enough when you placed an ear against the wall or just close to you could hear the bees and they were NOT happy, no sir! You could feel the wall vibrating as they carried on.

We had a few that somehow made their way into the house but they appeared pretty doped up and easily dealt with. In the end, and with the exception of a bee sting, my end goal was accomplished and the Vespidae were eradicated. Once the weather changes I will pull out the ladder for a closer inspection and caulk where necessary to prevent this from happening again.

FYI - the bee sting is now really, really itchy :-)

Spring is Springing Here in New England!

The New England weather is changing (for the better)! The days are longer and the temperatures are warming up. We've had three consecutive days of 50+ temps with the sun shinning away. The critters and bulbs are awakening and the song birds are singing. The chickens and rabbits are also enjoying the warm weather and fresh air now that I can leave their pen doors propped open. The ducks too; I saw them mating this morning for the first time - all signs that Spring is in the air, hooray!

I was out in the yard for a couple hours yesterday picking up sticks, raking and edging. The picture above shows a clutch of our crocuses already a bloom. This itself isn't unusual for this time of year, however, if you look closely you'll see what IS unusual. Do you see them? There are two honeybees busy at work gathering nectar. Now, I don't know if this is unusual to see honeybees out this early but what I can tell you is that I didn't see my first honeybee until July 20th last year! I would say that one of the two events is unusual - you decide.

Anyway, it's reassuring to see these bees so early in the season and hopefully it's an indication of things to come.

Honey Bee

Here is the first, VERY FIRST, Honey Bee that I've seen visiting in our yard and on our flowers all spring and summer long and it's already July 20!

1st Honey Bee on Uncle Tommy -

- Honey Bee on Balloon flower.

Oh, we've had other bees all spring and summer long, especially Bumble Bees but not a single Honey Bee until today.

Bumble Bee dining on Salvia -

- Coneflower host - not sure what this bee is.

Hopefully there are more Honey Bees and I've just not noticed them. They're certainly welcome and needed too. However, Honey Bees are dying off all around the country at an alarming rate and the the experts are unsure why...

Honey Bee Die-off Alarms Beekeepers, Crop Growers And Researchers