Yikes, Those Are NOT Birds In My Birdhouse!
So, we have a birdhouse on our front porch.
Which every spring is inhabited by birds who hatch babies, feed them and eventually kick them out of the nest and move on.
This morning when I retrieved the newspaper from the curb I saw that it had been more or less soaked by the sprinklers so I spread the wettest sections out on the table pictured above. And immediately found myself being buzz bombed by a bee! Who followed me back into the house and stung me on the arm! Thinking at first it was a wasp, I peered carefully around the door and saw bees coming and going from the birdhouse. Well, I realized they were bees after the hubbie calmed me down and pointed out that they were beelining (so to speak) for the flowers in the garden.
This pic is a little fuzzy as the zoom function on my camera is not working that great (hey, you didn’t think I was getting that close, did you?), but all those little fuzzy blobs are bees buzzing around the exterior.
Now I actually like bees quite a bit and it makes a lot of sense that they would have chosen to shelter in the vacated birdhouse. Here’s a picture of some of my front yard garden plants.
The pinkish clump is Autumn Glory sedum, just coming into bloom which is-to-die-for if you’re a bee. In front are lambs ears which have sort of unsightly flowers (now trimmed off) which, again, bees drool over. The seed heads in the back are from bee balm, which, yes, bees like. I also grow several types of salvia and other herbs including lavender all, you guessed it, good eatin’ for bees.
On top of that the side yard and backyard are full of things like zinnias, sunflowers, pumpkins, squash, tomatoes and more herbs. So you could probably bill this place as bee paradise if you were trying to entice them in. I actually am because I am concerned about the decline in the wild bee population and am trying to create habitat for them but having them actually set up housekeeping in my actual, you know, front yard has thrown me for a bit of a loop.
I spent some time this morning reading about how to move wild bees. There is no particular good answer which doesn’t have some adverse effects on the bees. And the fact is we really don’t use that porch to speak of. If we sit outside we generally do it in the back since the dogs would have a heart attack if they couldn’t be with us and having them on the front porch unrestrained would be a disaster waiting to happen.
So even though my arm is still sore from the stinging, I understand that the bee was just trying to protect its new home and, in fact, gave its little life in the attempt. And as long as you don’t stick your face practically in the birdhouse opening (as I did) they don’t pay us the slightest bit of attention. So we’ll just practice a “live and let live” strategy for the meantime and see if the little guys make it through the winter. If the hive grows they’ll probably want to re-locate it anyway since the birdhouse is not that big. Here’s to good neighbors!
Posted by marindenver on 09/08/10 at 05:00 PM • Permalink
Categories: Critters • Messylaneous •
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