Bee Habitat

One of the first things I noticed when getting back to Tucson was that the weeds had taken advantage of my absence. I don’t think I’ve ever lived anywhere where I’ve had so much weeding to do, it’s quite surprising. I would have thought that verdant California or the lush Pacific Northwest would require more weeding. But there’s just something about the combination of lots of warm sun and periodic bursts of rain, with wide open spaces and not a lot of undergrowth, that is ideal for weeds. Luckily I’ve been enjoying getting out to weed in the warm and sunny mornings.

I was outside weeding last week, staring at the ground in my zoned-out weeding mode, when I was suddenly aware of an ominous hum. I looked up and yikes, lots of bees! After I got over my initial surprise, it was pretty cool.

One of our palm trees was in full bloom and swarming with bees.

Here you can see the yellow masses of tiny flowers.

The long straight yellow parts that look like a feather duster are where the flower petals have fallen off.

Here you can see the millions of tiny petals all over the ground.

It’s hard to see the bees in the still shots, so I took a short video so you can see them.

Here’s a video link if your phone doesn’t show the embedded link above. https://youtu.be/rBfqmXq68vk

Unfortunately the video seems to automatically edit out most of the hum of the bees buzzing, but you can hear our small, plug-in water fountain nearby. And birds! We get all kinds of exotic birds migrating through in the winter.

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