i get asked all the time why i dont keep bees. mostly, it's just too many little souls on my conscience. the chickens are worry enough.
but also because i'm trying to let this be as wild as it can. it's every bit as important to me as the tomatoes and the peaches and the apples.
for the most part, i dont plant natives so much as let the local natives, aka weeds, grow as much as possible. this year seems to have been thistle year. they started showing up last year, and this year i had a couple big patches, including the parkway in front of my house.
milkweed did the same. so i had a cloud of butterflies to watch from my window, including lots of monarchs.
but up close, that patch was just swarmed by native bees. lots of mason bees.
some bumble bees, too, but they do seem to be declining, even from 9 years ago when i started this project. nothing scientific about my numbers, tho. just impressions.
i picked up doll house from the trash, and it's sitting there waiting to be a bee hotel.
been to distracted w the property management side of this circus this year. it's been wilder than usual. it's a project for winter. maybe this winter.
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