Bird & Bee

I like bees. We do have a variety of bees around here. I think this one is a carpenter bee. Funny thing, I was googling carpenter bee and almost every site that came up had to do with getting rid of them. Pretty much everything I skimmed over said to use pesticides. I don't want to get rid of my bees. I just wanted some information. What I found out is that carpenter bees, as I would have guessed, excavate hollows in wood to nest. They do not consume the wood. Carpenter bees feed on pollen and nectar, as evidenced in the photos below. They are important pollinators. Here are two photos of a bee enjoying my strawberry patch. We've got a bumper crop of strawberry flowers this year. I can hardly wait for those berries. It won't be long now.



People, please don't use pesticides indiscriminately. We need our bees. They pollinate our food crops. It would be hard for us to eat without them.




We can also thank our hummingbird friends for pollinating things. Like the bee, they feed on nectar too. They also eat many insects. I don't think I'd ever get tired of watching these tiny, amazing birds hover around the garden sticking their needle shaped bills into flowers. These tiny guys are only about 3 inches tall and about 3 grams in weight. They consume twice their body weight each day. It takes a lot of energy to buzz around the garden like that. During one of those rainy days this week, I got some video of a hummer taking a rest on the garden fence. It was raining, but it didn't seem to bother her.

Press the arrow icon in the image below to start the video.