Early Summer Garden Flowers for Bees; Swarms and The Difficult Case of a Duck

 

Well - as I'm typing this we seem to have left June and settled somewhere in October, because outside it's cold, grey, windy and wet. This is not the weather for bees or butterflies; so it's unlikely that many of them will be flying at the moment - and I think that's a real shame, because one of the beautiful sights of summer has to be watching bees and butterflies foraging amongst the flowers on a warm, sunny day.

I wrote about the 'June Gap' last time and this set me thinking about which flowers the bees would  seek out in early summer.  I wanted to review my own planting and see if it was truly up to scratch for them. I planted lots of bee-friendly plants years ago, but I've lost some since. So - in a follow-up post to my last one - I've produced a very short list of some of the flowers the bees are foraging on at the moment.

One of the main bee/butterfly flowers I've planted is Scabious. Planted in a drift, this attracts plenty of bees and butterflies...

Large White Butterfly

My Alliums are also a real favourite...

Bumblebees love the Foxgloves and Comfrey on the smallholding. The honeybees love the Poached Egg Plant I took a pic of before - and Common Bistort is popular with honeybees, too...

The bees are also to be found on Poppies, Salvia and Californian lilac.  On my last post, I had some kind comments about the plants the bees and butterflies are currently loving including Cotoneaster and Catmint. If you have any more flowers that the bees are going crazy on in your garden at the moment and you can recommend them, please let me know!  I'd love to hear what the bees and butterflies are foraging on right now. 

Butterflies

Over the past few days I've seen two more species of butterflies for the first time this year.  First of all this Small Heath...

And then this Common Blue...

And I'm still hoping to see my first rare butterfly of the year...

Swarms

I wrote in an earlier post about the swarming season for bees, which is usually any time from late April to early August and which peaks around now.  Two of my own colonies are thinking about swarming; they're making queen cells - which is the first sign that some of the bees are preparing to leave the hive.  As well as producing a new queen (which will get left behind with the rest of the bees while the existing queen leaves with the swarm), the colony sends out bees to scout around for a new home for the swarm. Many beekeepers who have lost bees recently and are looking for a new colony will leave out bait hives i.e. empty hives, to lure in a swarm. Swarming bees particularly seem to like old comb and already-used hives (rather than new ones), possibly because they're reassured then that the hive has already been tried and tested!

Just before the bees leave in a swarm, they fill up with honey (if they have some in the hive) and this is another problem for their beekeeper because this reduces the honey crop. And then the bees are off - and watching bees leave the hive en masse is an incredible sight (unless it's your own bees, of course, when it isn't fascinating, it's horrifying).

I admit I have a favourite colony, because it has a lovely, calm temper and these bees are also filling up the hive with honey. If they swarm, I'll be really sad to lose them - and anxious, too, in case the new queen isn't as good (she may not lay as well or she may have mated with some bad tempered drones and produce bad tempered off-spring).  I'll just have to wait and see what happens.

Other Flowers

Elsewhere on the smallholding - by the pond - the Yellow Flag Irises are flowering;

I love Irises - and I'd like to introduce several of these Siberian Irises my garden...

The Roses, among my favourite flowers, are starting to bloom; this is 'Arthur Bell' climbing up the side of the new barn and looking gorgeous...

The Difficult Case of a Duck

One evening last week, while I was feeding my resident Mallards, I came across an injured female Mallard. She had hurt (or broken) her leg and couldn't walk at all; she was laying down with it sticking out at an angle. Then, as I approached her to attempt some sort of rescue, I saw six tiny ducklings behind her on the pond. I'm certain they'd not long hatched out.

Well, I tried to catch her, but I couldn't, because her wings were working well enough and as soon as I got anywhere near her she quickly flew away on to the pond.  After a while of trying (and failing) to creep up on her I eventually contacted the local animal hospital and then the RSPCA (where someone came out that evening).  Both of these organisations told me that they couldn't help because she was too impossible to catch. And of course it wasn't only mum - the ducklings had to be caught as well...



The Female Mallard and Ducklings on the first evening I discovered them

Anyway, in the week since then, the ducklings have all been fine and have been happily feeding themselves on the pond. I've seen the mother a couple of times since, and thrown her some food (not easy when the geese spot what I'm doing and dive in to steal it first, but I have managed to make sure she eats something).  I haven't seen her the past few days - so I assume she's tucked up in the bushes/reeds/long grass somewhere by the pond.  I don't know how she'll get on, but at least, with strong wings, she can stay relatively safe from any predators. Perhaps Snowbird from 'Gardens and Wildlife', with her experience of wildlife rescue, has some advice for me on this. Meanwhile, the ducklings are growing stronger and look like real survivors...

The six Ducklings a week later.

No doubt they'll grow very quickly over the next few weeks and then perhaps they'll stay like the resident Mallards and make their home here (either in or on top of the Duck House!)

I hope so.