What a great picture! I'm glad your bumblebees are hard at work.

booberry - I have only one bee.....this little fella has visited my garden every morning for the past 3 mornings, and I drink coffee and watch him work - He seems to enjoy it! I'm glad you liked the photo.

what an awesome picture!

I have bumblebees, some very tiny wild bees/wasps, and honeybees (not seeing very many of these his year--I have an idiot neighbor who dumped sevin all over her roses when they were blooming last year).

Yeah, susan - sevin is just not the answer, in my opinion. I mostly handpick pests, and everything is doing great. But, I do understand if people don't have time to do that, because of various reasons. My wife even asked me why didn't I use sevin for pest control. I told her, I don't because I care about the bees. It's all about the bees.....If more people took that approach, we might have more of them around these days. Just my thoughts.....

I agree--I am not going to slam anyone for using Sevin properly. Just noticed the startling drop in honeybee population immediately after she did that last year. Too bad.

She literally took half a bag of the powder and poured it over her rose bushes, while I stood there, saying, no--just put it on the leaves, use a sock to dust, etc.

Someone needs to offer a course on how to use pesticides properly.

Wonderful pic!

I had a lone bee visiting my garden last year too. Found him (her) sleeping on an eggplant stem one morning. Unfortunately, I have yet to see a bee of any sort around here this year.

Thanks holly. It seems that the other bees are jealous now....there are several out there - different species and everything. Man, this is awesome!

HURRAY!!!!!

Don't know where they came from, but upset 5-9 honeybees terribly when I watered this morning!

they were all over everything with a bloom today--have not seen them here sincelast year.

Now that they have found me, know they will be back with more friends (as long as I hide my neighbor's Sevin.....)

Yea! Susan - bees are our friends. I got a snapshot of a honeybee the other day, as well.

What a beautiful picture...

We have lots of bees, I think because half my backyard is clover, and I've read that helps. We reseeded the front lawn this year to get rid of weeds, and when my husband asked if we should do the back, I said "Not on your life, it might send away the bees!"

Thanks, dirtdauber - I also have clover in the yard, and lots of honeysuckles and stuff. I went out to the garden the other morning, and the squash section sounded like a whole squadron of world war 2 bombers in there. That was cool!
EG

Check out this photo my 12 year old son took: six bees in one pumpkin flower!

{{gwi:544593}}

more bee & pumpkin pics here...

Here is a link that might be useful: Smith Family Garden Blog

I love bees, and we've been getting a lot of them around here lately, and they're HUGE! I caught this guy the other day, he was having a grand old time on my sunflower. ;-)

Cool! these are awesome pics, Chris and boopster. Chris, I checked out your blog. Nice site, and you put the kids to work! Thanks for posting these.

EG

Thanks for the kind words about our family's garden blog.

The kids have really gotten into it. They're making garden videos now. They planted most of the seeds in our square foot garden plots and check the progress daily. It's been a fun family project.

My son, Trevor, took an iPhoto class and now he's really having fun with the camera.

Here is a link that might be useful: Smith Family Garden

We didn't have any bees at the beginning of the summer. My theory is they hadn't found us yet. I had to begin hand pollinating my squash early on. But then I went out one morning and there were a couple of bumblebees doing my job for me. I still go out and check my plants (although I no longer need to do the pollinating) and the number of bees has greatly increased. And like some of you, I have now noticed some honeybees which had been absent at the beginning of the summer. These days my garden is literally hopping with bees early in the morning. Yippee!

Yay! Yep, if you go out there right after daybreak, there will be tons of them!

EG

Great pics! I have been wanting to get up with the birds, but I can't seem to manage. I really want to see if I have any female blossoms, but when I check later in the day, the blossoms are mostly closed. Also would like to see some bumble bees at work!
What time is a good time to check?

I go out around 7 or 8 and the flowers are open and bees are buzzing. They stay open probably until 9 or maybe even later.