My Australian nephews, Malcolm, Christopher and William have brought the good weather across with them this month. They are here with us for a week and we have eaten every main meal outside so far. Another BBQ is planned for this evening out front near the gum trees to make them feel at home. No koalas here but plenty excitement with bees and moths among the flowers.
New Queens
At last, I have new queens in every main colony and am waiting for two nuclei to get sorted with a good laying queen each, hopefully. The boys helped in the apiary yesterday and Will (13) is totally hooked on beekeeping and insects. We went down to the distillery to help Cynthia check her colonies for new laying queens after swarm season. Will handled the frames and did the main inspections then spent the rest of the day in my apiary just watching bees.
Leaf Cutters and Hummingbird Hawk-Moths
The everlasting sweet peas, Lathyrus latifolius, although they have no scent that I am aware of, attract lots of insects including leaf cutter bees (Megachillidae) and bumble bees. I saw a tiny leaf cutter bee harass an enormous buff-tailed bumble bee queen by dive bombing her till she moved away from the patch of flowers. Yesterday I was so excited to see a hummingbird hawk-moth, Macroglossum stellatum (named for its very long tongue/proboscis) hover over the flowers and put on a great show. Malcolm captured her on video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21S5PbO5J_0
I’ve never seen one in Scotland before but they are not rare and have been seen on Fair Isle during their migration from Europe. They are summer visitors to the UK and Ireland and it is amazing that they can travel so far and across water.
July Garden Forage
My garden has a lot of good bee forage plants in bloom right now and everything has grown up high and suppressed some of the weeds which is good since I haven’t got much spare time for weeding this summer.
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Ann,
Great to see the plants in flower in Scotland right now. Our forages are about 2-3 weeks behind you in Canada and am looking forward to the asters and goldenrod. We have heavy smoke from forest fires which has been keeping our bees closer to home rather than out foraging. Hopefully that will dissipate soon as it will have an impact on honey production.
We also have just noticed the hummingbird moths on some of our bright pink flowers. They do have an elongated probiscis which makes them a splendid pollinator.
Hope your nephews don’t eat you out of house and home and thanks for the column.
Thank you for sharing this with us Ann. Family and pollinators together are precious and the real reason we do what we do again thanks 👍🏽❤️❤️❤️❤️