Our New Guests

I haven't blogged in a while as I've been at the rather more cloudy East Anglian coast. However on my return I find I have new neighbors, a queen bee appears to have chosen our sparrow terrace (a bird box with 3 holes for sparrow families) as the perfect home for her tribe.

Upon researching our new guests we found them to be Tree Bumble Bees (Bombus hynorum), who like to inhabit holes in trees or nest boxes. They are none aggressive (one flew into my camera lens and went happily along it's way)

They were only discovered in the UK in 2001 but they are a welcome foreigner as they are pollinators, bees prop up life on earth and keep the human race in food, a very important species I am proud they chose to live with us.

It seems they were attracted by The Veg, and why not it's very attractive veg as well as wildflowers growing on the motorway embankment and the other flowers round the garden like lavender. What's fab about bees is the ladies rule the hive so the queen and workers are all women and men just linger outside the door hoping for some action. This is a pic of a hopeful Mr Bee.

I'll be keeping a keen eye on these little lodgers over the coming months.

Enjoying the Lavender, eat up little bee. For more info on attracting bees or helping their conservation see http://bumblebeeconservation.org/get-involved/gardening-for-bees/