I have a large patch of wild tradescantia (spiderwort) with some woodland phlox and camassia sprinkled through in the woods near the house. I can hear the bees when I step out the door. It's a nice change from those years when we hardly saw a bee on the place.

Are you feeding the deer, Larry?

Susan

Susan, it is strange about the deer. At this point I have not notice a bite taken out of anything. About a week or two ago when my granddaughter left for school she saw 13 just across my yard fence. This has been such a wet spring that they have food everywhere. I expect things to change when it starts getting dry and I start watering the garden, they will want the fresh tender plants and leave the crunchy stuff for the cows.

It will soon be time to reinstall the electric fence.

Larry

Poor little Bambi' s.....but I sure understand the need to protect your harvest.

Susan

It is nice that you're having a lot of bees. We have bees all over too, but I believe we have a lot morestuff in bloom in the fields than y'all have right now. In our yard, all the holly shrubs are in bloom and it is bee paradise. We've got 40 or 50 kinds of flowers in bloom, scattered all around the yard, garden spots, fields and woods. Some days I see bees lying on the driveway like they are too drunk with nectar to fly. When I come back later, they've "sobered up" and flown off.

We still have a few deer following the same trail through the pasture that they use in winter when I feed them, but not as many as we have at feeding time in winter. What we do have is a dual explosion: cottontail rabbits everywhere, and snakes on the move. The cottontails will last a few months until the coyote population cycles up and catches up with them, but the snakes will be here until it turns very cold next fall.

This evening I watched as a cottontail bunny circled the new garden area out back, trying to find a way in through the fence. We'll see tomorrow if it succeeded in getting in and eating plants, or if we did the fencing well enough to keep it out. The way it usually works with a new fence is that we think it is good enough and the rabbits prove us wrong. We find the areas where they are wiggling through or under the fence and fix those places, and they find a new way in. After a few weeks of that, the fence usually has been made rabbit-proof.

We must have had a coyote around because I had a concrete rabbit statue in that area back when the fence was only 4' tall. because we had not yet put up the second 4' of fencing to raise its height to 8'. Something jumped the fence and dragged the concrete rabbit statue across the garden to the fence, but couldn't get it either over or under the fence. I'm wondering how long it took the hungry wild animal to realize it was dragging around a concrete rabbit that wasn't going to make a very good dinner.

I'm just happy to see all the bees and bunnies, but not the snakes. All I've seen so far are non-venomous snakes and none have been closer to me than a foot or so, so I have managed to remain calm.

The deer are getting a little too comfortable and like to stand around and watch me work in the garden. Sometimes I have to wave my arms around and yell at them to make them leave if they are between me and the house. I might have to start taking Sam (our oldest and most well-behaved dog) out to the garden with me to keep the deer from hanging around too close.

We have oodles of hummers too, and purple martins. It feels like spring out there every day, until a cold front rolls in on Wed or Thurs of every week.

Dawn

So far, this spring my bees have been doing quite well. I'm just hoping that this crazy weather doesn't mess up the harvest. Temperature fluctuations, like we've been having, seem to trigger swarming. In the last week I've caught two swarms, both originating from my own hives. It's been fun. They're stuffed on honey when they leave the hive and group on a tree limb. I then take a spray bottle with sugar water, and spritz them with it. I can imagine them, as they start cleaning themselves off, and eating the sugar water, saying: "No...no... I really couldn't eat another bite!" But they do. By the time I shake them into a new hive they're in a jolly mood. None offer any resistance!

As I look out over our gardens I see hundreds of honey bees, at any moment, their wings glinting in the sunlight. Life is good!

George
Tahlequah, OK

My crimson clover is peaking right now and the bees are thick. We are about 3-4 weeks behind last year.

We've had swarms of drunken bees around our place, for the last month or so. Except on chilly days, I don't see too much of them. We have a mystery tree at our new house that was covered with white blooms & its neighbor, our redbud, were blooming at the same time & the honey bees went nuts! They're loving our clover & henbit weeds that we've let go to flower a few times. I can't wait until our flowers start blooming. Love the honey bees, I could live without their evil cousins though, LOL.

George, how amazing! I wish we had some hives. There are a lot of wild ones that I've come across around where I live & it's amazing to see them. I don't get too close, though!

Dawn, I just put out our hummingbird feeders the other day after I saw a few of them keep flying up to my colorful windchimes, looking for food. I haven't seen any purple martins here, yet, but we have oodles of cardinals & sparrows & larks that come eat out of our feeders we have on the porch. They make such a mess! I've been sweeping the porch twice a day, but it's worthwhile to watch them all day through the screen door. :)