Bees

A few weeks ago I wrote about how much bees like the allium flowers. It turns out they like the plant bottoms too. Yesterday I was doing a little weeding with my hand cultivator under the "Mt. Everest" alliums, and scratched the top off a bumblebee nest. Their home was right under the surface and looked like a bright yellow honeycomb. Since these are the pretty bees we love to see in the garden I was sorry I messed up their hive. These are also the bees that get angry and confused (not angry and aggressive) so I stood and watched them for a bit. The chaos was so complete I thought they might move out, but by late afternoon when we took this picture they had their act together and had rebuilt the nest. So now I know to avoid it.

Years ago, I had a bad encounter with a nest of ground hornets in about the same area. When I dug into their nest, they knew exactly what they wanted to do: kill me. I was stung several times and don't remember this, but must have been chased hysterically all over the yard because later I went out and saw my clothes strewn hither and thither! Sicilian revenge followed.