The chives bring the bees

kw: wildlife, bees, honey bees

I spent a lot of time, in 15-minute chunks, watching for bees on the sunflower plants I grew for The Great Sunflower Project. I've seen four species of pollen-gathering bees on the sunflowers, including a little striped bee I couldn't identify. I called it DK for "don't know", in my reports.

Today, camera in hand, I took a look at other parts of the garden to see what bees were being attracted elsewhere. The chives are in full bloom right now, and they were a bonanza of bee species. They draw some different bees because they have nectar, which sunflowers don't.

This image shows the largest and smallest species together. Before I tell you, can you find the little one? She is just opposite the bumble bee, in the lower right corner, a little out of focus. This bumble bee is a big one, nearly 30mm long, while the small bee (another species I can't identify, yet) is probably no more than 5mm long. This image is somewhat larger than life size, and the larger image you can see by clicking is about 3x life size.

There were also a number of honey bees on the chive blossoms. This one is working opposite one of the DK bees I've also seen on the sunflowers. This image is much better focused. While the honey bee is the typical 20mm size, the smaller bee is probably half that, smaller than a sweat bee.

Considering the worries over honey bees being decimated by "colony collapse disorder", it was a relief to see several today. There were none on my apple tree this Spring, and I saw very few prior to today.

I had begun cutting off the chive blooms, because I don't want them going to seed. They are perennial, and they've taken over a substantial section of my garden already. But when I saw so many bees, I quit cutting and got my camera instead. I will leave the rest to bloom until they fade, to feed the bees.