Return of the bees

[randy_byers]

A rather fluffy piece in today's Seattle Times on creating a bee-friendly garden reminded me that a couple of days ago I saw two honeybees working the flowers on the broadleaf plant out front. (Thought that plant was called a bear claw, but can't confirm it via googling.) Those were the first honeybees I've seen in my yard in several years. There have been two big die-offs amongst honeybees in the past decade, and the current one -- a phenomenon called Colony Collapse Disorder in which whole colonies die -- is ongoing. Now it sounds as though something similar is happening to bats.

Anyway, I was curious whether those two bees represented a return of honeybees around here or if they're just part of a surviving rump population.

Speaking of bee-friendly gardens, I haven't made much progress on mine, although I did bust a little more sod last weekend when I was weeding the yard. Part of the reason for the goddamned bee-friendly garden is to get rid of more lawn so I don't have to weed it anymore! Well, one good idea I got from the SeaTimes' fluff piece was that dead logs make good places for bees to nest in. I've got an old stump from a butterfly bush sitting around in my back yard, so this gives me something to use it for. (Wow, two sentences in a row with dangling prepositions! Loose living.) One nice thing about taking one's time with a project is that it allows ideas to accrete. Yeah, that's why I'm taking my time, yeah, exactly.

Comments

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Right! Give your prepositions some room!

I'm sure there are regional variations on the die-off, but some estimates I've seen have been a loss of up to 45% of local colonies. There was another die-off a while back that was caused by mites. They still aren't sure what's causing CCD, although there are several theories.

All I know is that honeybees disappeared from my garden a few years ago. On the other hand, my parent's place in Central Oregon has tons of them.