Here is our bee hive on an 101 degree day! This is the first beards (the other beard is under the boardman feeder) I have seen our bees make. I got worried later that night the hive was covered in bees, I thought they were going to swarm, just cooling off. Bees like the temperature to be 93 degrees in the hive. I stopped by Jan's and his big hive had two 6 inch beards on it. After two days in the 100s we had two days in the 80s, the bees looked to have packed up and left as maybe 1/5th as many were outside the hive.
This Pipevine Swallowtail,
Battus philenor caterpillar was found near our road, I have seen these about every year, but have never located any
Aristolochia the host plant. Some beautiful photos and more on the
Pipevine Swallowtail on my website here.
The black-eyed susans are looking pretty good despite the heat.
Green June Beetle, Cotinus nitida mating on our deck. The grubs of this species are supposed to be bad on your lawn. Good thing we hardly have a lawn.
Grumpy doing what he does best....
Remember the cone flower photo I posted a few weeks ago, this is the entire plant!
Today I was at Southern States, the coreopsis venticillata Moon Beam'were covered in bees. They had an end cap on 4-5 large plants that must have had 100 bees on them. So I purchased one Moonbeam and one Zagreb for our bees. This bee is on sneezeweed I believe.
This male
Fiery Skipper was cooperative in letting me get a photo of it today at Southern States. These are one of the most common skippers in most gardens in the southern US.
19 comments:
I'm going to assume the "beard" means the bees are gathering together to make a large breeze??
Everything does look good over there, despite your heat. And I've MISSED your butterflies and other insects... thanks for posting some photos. Your skipper is beautiful!
I saw 2 "snout" butterflies today! :-)
What a busy paradise you have there Randy! So much life . . . busily engaged and relaxing. Fabulous photos! Cool caterpillar . . . your other site photos of the butterflies are great too.
This weather has been a bear hasn't it. The cool-off has been a relief.
It is so hot, but look at everyone and everything - they all are busy, and some of them are very busy! Great photos!!! Stay cool!
Randy, playing catch-up here, enjoying all the latest installments about the rain chains, totes and the bees. 101...oh, boy, and all the weather people around here are freaking out because we're supposed to hit 93 tomorrow. (But with the humidity, it will feel like 105.) So if you're already at 101, I don't want to know what your 'feels like' temps are.
Wonderful photography and fascinating projects at your house, like usual!
Randy I cannot recommend coreopsis 'Limerock ruby' as a bee magnet, enough. I treat it as an annual.
101 is hot. Continued good luck with the bee keeping.
Randy - that's quite an air conditioning system your bees are building!
We stopped by the white garden at Duke today (after seeing Tatyana's post). The pollinators were literally swarming the clethra blooms--and it smelled wonderful, of course. I can't grow it around deer (tried that at a previous house).
Wonderful display despite the weather. You may overlook native pipevine, the flowers are hardly noticeable.
You asked about Tithonia. It is easier from seed. Pull up spent plants in fall and lay them around where you want Tithonia the next year or clip off whole seedpods and scatter. It does want water in a drought. My Dotty Plants blog has a video from 7/15 with Tithonia and butterflies.
It is very hot here too. Heat advisory until Friday....I love seeing your bees....my moon glow coreopis is a bee magnet. I have a nice old hedge that the mason bees really love.
Thanks for the pIpevine cat. I have the butterflies off and on on the butterfly bush and I grow Pipevine but have yet to see a caterpillar. I think they must be buried in the center of the vine...
Fiery Skipper is so pretty. Great photograph.
Stay cool...
Sherry
Glad to see the bees doing well, I hope the heat didn't chase them away for long. Your plants look so healthy despite the heat. Very impressive.
meet the heat.
Hello again, Randy :-)
Not sure, if I could keep bees but guessing you become passionate about the hive and health of your bees in it. Great photos from your garden and out and about. Love that skipper shot… a lot :-)
What you said about the bees was something new to me. I hope the bees are OK and return.
We are having that heat wave, too.
lovely and some amusing photos, but that larva is somewhat scary. I remember our big Atlas moth larvae which are green, long and fat. We were afraid of them as kids. I will look at your link later to see the adult. We have Aristolochia here but i havent seen the butterflies.
Randy, You Must visit Gwirrel's Garden to see her breathtaking photos of butterflies!! http://gwirrel.blogspot.com/
Still hot isn't it? Man! Bug sex on the deck, nice!
The beetles seem to be the only thing totally unaffected by the heat! They are enjoying my garden a bit too much.
Nice photos :)
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