The Buzz on Bees with Bee Butler Michael King ~ June 12th

The recent warm weather has created a good honey flow for the bees to be taking advantage of and the earlier rainfall of this week has been a benefit for bees as it makes for more blooms to develop and for plants not to ‘overbloom’ too quickly . A steady flow of nectar throughout the summer beats a rapid and heavy nectar flow that reduces the availability once a heatwave has taken hold. The best bee weather is really one where warm even hot days are interspersed with light rainfall and some overcast days to allow plants to regenerate and keep their blooming periods longer.

Our herb garden has been planted with several items recently including leeks, swiss chard, garlic, lavender, kale, hot peppers and tarragon. We know that our tomatoes and our strawberry plants have been visited by honeybees and mason bees because we now have tomatoes and strawberries growing into ripeness which could not have happened without the bees pollinating the original blooms on these plants.

In addition the Spanish lavender and the rosemary have been very popular with the bees as they are natural attractants with their blue and purple blooms.

Why do bees like blue coloured blooms better than ever other you ask ? Well the answer is that bees see our world in ultra violet meaning that everything they see most clearly is on the blue side of the spectrum. In fact bees cannot see the colour red or orange at all ! They can see violet, indigo and blue, as well as yellows and whites.

Have you ever wondered why bees sometimes fly around many flower blooms without landing on them and seem to go to specially selected blooms. They are smart enough to be able to know if a bloom has been visited previously by one of their own or another bee as the area around the bloom carries a different electrical charge when nectar has been removed by someone else so they do not waste valuable time entering every single flower and thus become even more efficient in their collection of nectar and pollen. So now you know !

And you thought humans were smart !?!

Learn more about our bees and #BeeButler at: http://bit.ly/beebutler