Gomphrena....that's right I want to try gomphrena this year.....hmmmmm
No bees in sight
I want gomphrena - is there a place to get seed or plants inexpensively?
I noticed bumblebees love sunflowers. Gomphrena, not so much. I grew the tall purple variety that seem to take our summer heat well. Never noticed bees on them. Maybe I will look more closely this year.
Now what I call Bumble bees are the large mostly black bee that bores into the rafter on my porch but I think that may be what is known as a Carpenter bee ..Any who what ever it is it likes the coneflowers as well as the sunflower So somebody straighten me out..
I got some seeds from my local farmer's co-op. I also saw some at Wally World. Alternately, it looks like one can buy any gomphrena variety under the sun, in bulk and at a reasonable price for the quantiy from Hazzard's Seed: http://www.hazzardsgreenhouse.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?
Hope the link works. I'm batting .500 in the link department for the past couple of days. Wish the Cubs could come up with a few guys with that average, but in computer links that isn't very good. =~/
there are carpenter bees, but I have never seen one. I would have to do an internet search.
Might be mason bees. They are good.
If you google or ask.com how many var of bees are there, i warn you. there is A BUNCH. i cant tell differences in many of tm. I thot the mason bees looked like a fly too. chuckl.
Okay I am going to search thru my files fro a bumble bee picture BRB
If I got it saved to my harddrive we will be done OKAY THIS IS WHAT i CALL A bUMBLE BEE
Looks like a bumblebee to me. I had bumblebee moths in my garden last year, about half again as long as a genuine bumble bee, maybe twice as long, same coloring. They were amazing. First time I saw one I thought it was a weird hummingbird.
here is a link that shows them side by side.
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.pestid.msu.edu/Portals/0/dnnPhotoGallery/861/552.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.pestid.msu.edu/LinkClick.aspx?link%3D227%26tabid%3D71%26mid%3D408&h=200&w=299&sz=19&tbnid=vb2e46FWoAYjDM:&tbnh=86&tbnw=129&zoom=1&usg=__0ncQU8ElxKFcIQ2p0Y8VdiV6DOM=&docid=wnBDTx_lDWmSsM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=v9BDUf6yD4Oa2gXR7oAw&sqi=2&ved=0CJQBEP4dMAs
Yours has a thin waist grits- carpenter bee
if it's eating the porch it has to be a carpenter bee. The color on the comparison photo seemed more like her pic but, Bumblebees like to nest UNDER the porch.
Fooled me the retired beekeeper that lives nearby has 2 hives behind his storage shed Makes me happy
kinda like the old adage, those that don't have time to cultivate a garden should cultivate the local gardener (favors, help out, visit) before the zucchini boom hits..
same goes for bees. My neighbor helped me the first year or 2, so his garden got pollinated. Then he got hooked and got a hive when one of mine swarmed off to visit him. bought his own equipment and everything
My first batch of mason bees are out and very busily nesting. Most of mine are still in the refrigerator. I put some of them out every few weeks in spring, to extend their pollination period.
I see mason bees in my gardens, but guess they are nesting in the holes in my elm tree, because I have no nesting boxes for them. (best intentions, I bought a 4x4 never got it drilled and it ended up used fixing something or other..)
Are they in the woodpecker holes in the trees?
Mason bees in the refrigerator? This is the first time I heard of this. Very fascinating. Why are they so important besides polination?
My understanding is that Mason bees are native to North America (the honey bees are imports). They are better adapted. I like all bees, but we ordered up some Mason bees two years ago. They don't seem to need much care. I did provide a nesting house/box. I forgot to put it up and left it on the baker's rack my the side door. They found it anyway and have nested there for the last two years. Not really sure if I should move it but there are wasps around the side door this spring (they are about the die!). So I don't want to expose the Mason bees to the wasp spray. But they are used to going to my baker's rack now. Sigh...decisions, decisions. Darned wasps--they ruin all the fun!
They are also much better pollinators than honey bees. I've seen numbers like 100x better. :)
I was in the DFW area visiting my sister last weekend. We went to the Japanese Garden. The temp was mid 80's and flowering trees are blooming but there weren't that many bees. It was pretty windy. That's probably why.
Fun mason bee factoid: they seem to hang out in their nesting tubes at night, facing inward. I just got back in from shining a flashlight on my nesting can, and saw a dozen or so bee tubes with black bee bottoms sticking out.
ytnpham
which Japanese Garden did you go to in DFW?
Right now if you live in DFW and have Hollies shrubs, they should be full of bees ! I mean FULL !
Check them out !
Yes, I've noticed the bee bottoms hanging out of their tubes as well. Mason bees do seem to have a personality. I think they are kind of funny.
Ft. Worth botanical garden last Saturday. There's a section near the bamboo forest where you can be at eye level with a blooming cherry tree. There are some bees but not that many.
Thanks. I love that garden
It's absolutely gorgeous. You should check out the Dallas one during tulips time. OMG! It's heaven on earth!
yes,
I am going at the Dallas Arboretum next week for the "Dallas in bloom".
Gypsi, how much honey do you get from each of your hives and is it for your personal use?
My first few mason bee tubes have been capped off. They are fun to watch.
I have to say that I am very happy that you all on Dave's suggested getting the mason bees for my DH. He had wanted to get into honey bees, but the mason bees take less time. DH works a lot so we are putting off the honey bees until he semi-retires. The mason bees are quite fun to watch.
With a drought I get NO honey. I fed 150 lbs of Imperial Sugar last summer to keep 5 hives alive, so roughly 30 lbs per hive.
If I ever get honey, we'll see. Some would be for personal use and I'd probably sell some. not looking good on the drought breaking though, we are very very dry up here. (I'm south/southwest corner of Fort Worth almost in Johnson County, and I have missed a lot of the rain.)
That's a lot of sugar. It seem I use that much to feed "my" hummingbirds during the summer. Don't that change the taste of honey?
You don't harvest honey if you are feeding, and you don't feed if you plan on harvesting honey.
Because bee-processed sugar water is just that, bee-processed sugar water. It isn't honey. Honey is evaporated nectar.
(want to make a bunch of beekeepers in a forum mad, tell them you LIKE the idea of giving the bees a candycane in winter and getting peppermint honey. I did this. I've left that forum.)
I went through my hives today. well 3 of them. They have for the most part used up their stored sugar water and are starting to store nectar. So maybe I will get a little honey this year, especially if it rains this weekend. I left the candy canes in the cupboard, lol
This message was edited Mar 21, 2013 8:36 PM
Thank you, Gypsi, I learn something new today. One more question please, how do you feed them? By the way, I saw my first hummingbird! I stop what I was doing (eating take-out chinese, hey it's Friday) and went immediately to the fridge where I had sugar water prepared. I fill the feeder, hung it up, waited, hummingbird gone. Oh well, I'll be up early tomorrow.
bees will drink from a hummingbird feeder, but I use in hive type feeders, either a jar on top, or a frame feeder inside the hive, for my own bees
Thanks once again, Gypsi. Good news, I have bees lots of them. My arugula and cilantro are in flowers and swarming with bees. Also my pear trees are loaded with tiny fruits. Its amazing how they got polinated. I left an area to grow wild flowers and I noticed my guineas are pecking at the flowers. Does anyone know if guineas eat bees? If they do I will have to get rid of them.
How many of those brainless birds do you have? I think they'd eat anything but bees only once.
Lol! I hope that's the case. I have 10 of those witless bird brains. They're quite amusing and they do eat bad bugs,better not the bees or else. I've never had roasted guineas. Catching them will be the problem.