Giant Robber Fly

My bees seem to have so much to contend with, including predators !  I caught this Giant Robber Fly in action .  :(

Giant Robber Flies

So I am walking around with my Nikon.  Looking and investigating to see what plants the honeybees might be foraging on.  I see this remarkable site and take a picture.  Later to see that these are Giant Robber Flies.  And yes, they do eat honeybees and other insects.   I can appreciate their natural beauty and place in nature but it is probably good for them that I didn't realize at the time what they were... LOL

Planting to help bees and other pollinators..

You can brighten up your yard and help out the honeybees and other pollinators by planting flowers that provide pollen and/or nectar.  Even annuals can provide important food during dry periods.  It doesn't have to be acres of land - small plots can add to the diversity of food sources.

Sunny Flowers and Sunny Days

What a beautiful cool day today.  My "bee girls" were gathering pollen from the sunflowers I planted for them !  Pollen is used to feed baby bees, it is the bee's only source of protein.

Bringing in the harvest......NOT

So in early June, I work in the hot sweaty weather and put honey supers (boxes) on the bee hive in preparation for the coveted Sourwood Honey flow.  Today , here is it early August, I am back in the hot sweaty bee yard taking those boxes back off and yes they are still empty !  It has rained almost every day of the bloom period and for the first year ever, I will have 0 jars of sourwood honey.  Beekeeping ain't for sissies.

Bees have a great sense of smell.

After spending the morning working in the honey house extracting honey and filling buckets, I rinsed off my hands and arms and came into the house.  Going out on the front screen porch, I hear buzzing that gets louder and louder and realize that I have bees

buzzing around right outside the screen .  Sure enough, they could smell the honey left on my hands.  I think we fail to appreciate how powerful the sense of smell is in bees.

Planting Buckwheat in Monsoon weather...LOL

Some books tell us that it is useless to plant for bees unless you have acres of land.  I don't buy that.  Maybe it would be difficult to get a monofloral honey such as Sunflower, Clover etc without a very large nectar source but I think we can help our bees and other pollinators by providing diverse nectar sources -even if you only have a small patch of ground.

I like to plant a small patch of buckwheat in my garden in mid summer.  Buckwheat will usually produce blooms 30 days after planting and I use it to provide nectar in mid to late August. (A time that is usually a dearth time in our area).

This year with all the rain we have had. I cant get the soil to be dry enough to plow !  So I just skimmed off the grass on top. Spread out the seed, threw out a plastic snake to hopefully discourage the birds and stuck my plastic owl on a pole for good measure..LOL .  My regular garden has been a disaster this year... lets hope the buckwheat comes along and enough dry weather for the bees to be able to fly and harvest it.  (Buckwheat is poisonous to grazing animals be careful where you plant it.)