Happy Honeybee Day!

Here's two simple things that ANYONE can do to help both honeybees and native bees:

- don't use pesticides of any kind

- plant flowers

Easy!

In celebration, I thought I'd post pictures of all the flowers that are blooming in my yard right now. I have several varieties of most of these flowers. Conservatively, I'd estimate that there are around 60 different types of flowers blooming, August 20, 2016. August is generally a time of dearth here in Northern CA (actually, anything outside of February thru May is considered a dearth here because of lack of rain), so I am proud that I have so many things available for pollinators. Many of these are natives, but many are drought-tolerant, and some are just regular flowers found all over the world. Since I give supplemental water, they are able to bloom now. I assume most folks are watering their lawns (I see evidence of it all around me), so instead of watering lawn, I water these flowers, vegetables, and herbs - and it takes far less water to keep them looking pretty.

Here's a slideshow:

The benefits of having lots of flowers available for the bees are many, but here's just two.