On Canada day, we braved the rain and went for a hike thru Nose Hill Park in NW Calgary. The sites of so may blue lupins was a site to see, along with many other wild flowers but my absolute favorite was finding a lonely frog orchid - I enlarged it so you can see the happy smiling frog :)
The two Clematis plants in the back are blooming. These are variety "Sweet Autumn", which I thought were supposed to smell like vanilla. But I don't smell anything from them at all. And the bees seem to be ignoring them (and the Black-eyed Susans). That whole patch is meant to be bee-friendly. But the bees are constantly on the Anise Hyssop and Borage. and sometimes the Comfrey.
Here are a couple photos from the back yard. There are a couple Purple Foxgloves flowering, but the bees seem to be ignoring them (and the two Sunflowers I bought specifically for the bees). But the Bumblebees are all over the Comfrey; there is a constant buzz as they vibrate in the flowers. A couple weeks ago they were all over a huge Rhododendron plant next door. It must be 20 - 30 feet tall and had massive numbers of flowers. Every time I walked by and stood quiet, I could hear the buzz of the Bumblebees. Funny though, I had a few Borage plants last year and I let them seed. But so far I haven't seen any new plants come up. They should be up by now, shouldn't they?
The neighborhood honeybees seem to like one of the water buckets I keep in the back yard. I did some research and learned that purple is a bee's favorite colour (they can't even see red; it's beyond their spectrum). So I found a purple watering dish at a local pet store (for a rabbit or hamster or some other small animal) and some purple aquarium gravel (to make sure it is non-toxic and won't leach chemicals into the water). Filled the dish up with the purple gravel and then water (so they don't drown). The result: the bees STILL prefer that one bucket beside the watering dish even though they risk drowning! In fact, there are seven or eight buckets of water around the yard that are always filled with water--but the bees always go to the same one. Baffling. I wonder what's so appealing about that particular bucket of water?
I'm lucky enough to live a 15-mn drive to a very nice place, "le conservatoire national d'Ilex". We visited it in October with members of the Europen branch of the Maple Society. I went there again yesterday and took a few photos - to be honest, I'm more interested in maples and flowers than in the about 100 hollies they keep. They also have a collection of Clematis.
It was a pail of Mediterranean Mix Olives. With brine, ascorbic acid, lactic acid, salt, etc. It was emptied about three weeks ago, and then re-filled. There are about four others nearby. Even the wasps go to this one all the time.
