Wednesday 10 June 2009

Bee Heaven

At the bottom of my garden is a very vigorous Buddleia Globosa. Every two or three years I cut it hard back and within a year it is back up to size - about 7ft high and 7ft wide. At the moment it is a riot of yellow / orange ball shaped flowers.

Just before tea time I wandered down with the camera to see what insect life was being attracted. It was swarming with bees, dozens of them all working hard flitting from ball to ball. They were all of the same black, yellow and orange colouring which I think may be Bombus pratorum. The bush certainly looked like bee heaven by the numbers attracted to it.

Bee Heaven

Yummy, Yummy - sweet nectar.
Bee Sucking Nectar

10 comments:

  1. A great plant for insects John. I wish I had room in the garden for one.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi John, Your Buddleia Globosa puts an image in my mind of a tattle of old ladies going for a swim all wearing bright orange swimming caps! Beautiful shots.

    ReplyDelete
  3. How nice to see the bees behavin' ~ what a gorgeous plant and terrific photos! Sorry I haven't been posting or responding, but I have been otherwise occupied, now that I'm living in the tropics ;). I have been following your blog though, and thoroughly enjoying your bird photos and videos, and also good to see that Henry and Honey are behavin' as well. I have some interesting bird videos to post, but Photobucket is doing maintenance which has stopped me in my tracks. Hopefully I'll get to posting again before long.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi Keith. It certainly does need a lot of room. If left alone the bush gets wider and wider. I used to be apprehensive about hard pruning it but it always comes back better than ever.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thank you Omi. I can see what you mean about the bathing caps. :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hi Glo. Pleased you enjoy your visits. I think that plant is somewhere near 30 years old and still going strong. I had a look at you tropical neighbour - glad the weather reached you as well. Hope your back and voice have recovered.
    I look forward to seeing your bird videos.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I do like that particular Buddleia - it always looks so cheery. isn't it great to have so many bees visiting - captured so well in your pictures.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Thank you Tricia. It is a beautiful, if dominant, bush especially when in flower. I was surprised just how many bees were visiting it. I had a pleasant three quarters of an hour next to it again yesterday and saw white tailed bumble bees as well as the orange tailed ones - plus several other insects. At the moment the bees are ignoring other flowers so there must be something extra good about the buddleia.

    ReplyDelete
  9. What a beautiful Buddleia and the bees obviously think so to!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Hi Jan. The bees seem to love it. In fact they are ignoring everything else at the moment except the raspberries in the cage next to it so I should get a good crop this year.

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for visiting. Hope you enjoyed the pictures. Any comment, or correction to any information or identification I get wrong, is most welcome. John

Related Posts with Thumbnails