Whenever I'm out in
the garden I always feel the need to be doing something, pulling up
bindweed, watering pots, rescuing a plant in the greenhouse from heat
stroke, I do find it difficult to just sit.
But I must do try
harder because it's in those quiet, still moments when we're just
being not doing, that we actually appreciate just how much other
activity there is. When we stop being busy ourselves and take notice
of what's going on around us it's remarkable how industrious animals
are and none more so it seems to me than the wild bees. They have to
be I suppose to cram their life's work into just a few short weeks.
I'm paying more
attention this year because I have a brilliant bee identification
chart so now I can put names to them. Some which I'd always assumed
to be just smaller bumble bees are actually solitary ones which as
their names suggest don't live in colonies but lay their eggs in
individual holes in walls, or in the ground like the tawny mining
bees which I watched in the spring disappearing down cracks in the
lawn's bare patches. They are the little ginger furry ones, white
bottomed ones with the fluffy boleros I've discovered to be tree
bumble bees and the black ones with bright orange bums are red tailed
bumble bees. There are several with yellow stripes, but they'll have
to slow down a bit before I can be confident enough to know whether
I'm seeing a buff tailed or a white tailed or even a garden bumble
bee!
I always feel much
more of an affinity with something when I know what it's called, like
being on first name terms with the neighbours, the more I know about
the bees which share my garden with me the less likely I am to do
something to upset them and just like any good neighbours we help
each other out. I leave my lawn uncut so they have big patches of
clover, birds foot trefoil and bush vetch in which to forage and from
the densely packed fruit along the branches of the plum trees they
were very busy pollinating for me this spring.
A very fair
exchange, I do hope we stay on good terms now the runner beans are
in flower!
.JPG)
