Bulbs, Bees, and Muddy Acts of Faith

The weather is finally turning cold (or cold-ish) and hard frost has come, weeks past its due date, zapping the remaining color from the fields. Pink milkweed blossoms are just a memory now, blown to the wind on silken white horsetails that spring from cracked brown pods. Incandescent goldenrod blossoms have gone to cloud-like seed. Jewelweed, burdock, and all the other flowers the bees worked so diligently all summer have died back or become, truly, ghosts of their former selves.

Thankfully, the borage in the herb bed continues to provide a bit of sustenance, and with daytime temperatures continuing to provide days warm enough for the honeybees to venture out, the borage blossoms are where it’s at, bee-wise. What a gift to see and hear the honeybees work in these last days of October. What a strange and haunting gift.

This weekend, our answer to the sadness of autumn was to plant spring bulbs. Wren and I got 100 Siberian squill bulbs and 200 crocus bulbs in the ground after hours of digging around in the cold mud. Both bloom in early spring, and should provide a welcomed pollen source for the bees once the weather is warm enough for them to start flying and before an abundance of other pollen sources have become available.

I remember the indescribable thrill, last spring, of watching our newly hived honeybees feverishly working the measly bed of ten or twelve crocuses in front of the house. I am hopeful that at least one or two of our three colonies will survive the winter, if winter ever comes. And I’m eager to visit with the bees next spring and see them making use of the squill and other gifts of garden and field.

Planting these bulbs, for me, is a leap of faith: that spring will come again, that our bees will live to see it, and that we’ll have the time and presence of mind to immerse ourselves fully in the mesmerizing wonder of it all.

Portulaca Honeybee

Autumn has been gentle so far, with no hard frost as of yet and none predicted for the upcoming week. Though there's been significant die-back of the bees' forage plants, there are still a few decent stands of goldenrod and a great deal of aster to continue provisioning the bees for winter. The weather has been balmy and the bees have been foraging intensively in their continuing effort to pack away as much nectar and pollen for winter as they can. (My beekeeper mentors tellme a colony needs at least 60 pounds of honey to survive the winter; an inconceivable amount of work when you consider the size of a honeybee. Happily, all three of my hives appear to have attained the necessary stores.)

This weekend, I observed the bees foraging on borage, sunflower, black knapweed, ornamental (late-blooming) milkweed, zinnia, squash blossoms, and salvia, along with aster and goldenrod.

I was particularly intrigued to see a bee working the portulacas I planted early this summer near the front of the house. Though I have seen bees scope out these flowers throughout the summer (and occasionally collect dew drops from the petals), I've never seen a bee gather nectar or pollen from these plants—probably because better options abounded. But with the forage menu diminishing daily, this busy bee put aside any scruples she may have had about delving into the portulaca and literally immersed herself in the task, till she was dusted from head to tail with pollen.

Abstractions with Bumblebee

Honeybee on a Fallen Star

The flower fell.
But that didn't stop
the bee.

Spiders!

Some wasps—or are they hornets? I'm still not clear on the difference—have set up shop on the porch, and it's been fun watching their pretty grey nest develop over the past few weeks. The wasps/hornets are definitely a presence on the porch, but so far we've all managed to stay out of each other's way. (I'm not going to even THINK about spraying pesticides with honeybees around! Besides which, I've got my karma to protect.)

The other day, as I was heading to the bee yard, I came upon this scene—a wasp struggling mightily to escape the relatively small web of a relatively small spider.
As I watched this rather horrifying drama unfold, I wasn't sure who to root for. On the one hand, working with bees, I've become more appreciative of their near-relatives, the wasps and hornets. On the other hand, I'm a big spider fan.

I tore myself away from the wrestling match to take a few pics of the honeybees and when I came back 10 minutes later, the victor was clear.

I then headed up to the garden to take some pictures of the bees on the borage plants. There, I found a goldenrod spider (a.k.a. "flower spider") polishing off one of "my" honeybees!Mortified as I was to see a beloved bee meet such a premature end, I had to admire the spider's grace and stealth. I don't think crab spiders (the family to which goldenrod spiders belong) even use a web—I believe they ambush their prey.
See how frayed the bee's wings are? That's a sign of aging, and it may have made this girl more vulnerable to ambush. Perhaps her end—while sad—wasn't so premature, after all.

P.S. I just checked on the crab spiders in one of my field guides and read this: "[Crab spiders] do not spin web snares, retreats, or overwintering nests, but the male of some species may cover a prospective female with loose silken webbing and tie the female down."

We'll just file that one under "no comment."

'Scuse Me While I Kiss The Sky

Borage flowers look like little stars cut by a child from the midday sky.

I planted borage in our new herb bed to receive the medicinal properties of a perfect, cloudless-day blue.
The honeybees seem to like the borage, too.How extraordinary to be a bee, plunging headfirst into the ambrosial blue.