Monday, August 29, 2011

Colourful flowers feed an array of bumble bees.

Today I stopped by a Oliver Woods Recreation centre in Nanaimo (BC Canada).  It is a beautiful facility.

What really took my fancy were the beautiful raised flowerbeds at the entrance to the building.  Very welcoming.  The colours were stunning.  On closer inspection, bumble bees liked this array of flowers too.

At the end of summer bumble bee colonies stop growing and the colony begins to produce queens and males.  Queens mate with the males or drones and then hibernate over the winter until the following spring.  It is important to have well fed drones so they can fly and mate with the queens.  Flowers that provide nectar for bumble bees are a must.  The flowers in these photos are great nectar producers as the presence of these bumble bees indicate.

Most of these bumble bees are males.  Males usually have yellow heads.










This bumble bee is Bombus vosnechenskii







Grow flowers and they will come.


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