HERE'S WHAT'S BLOOMING IN MY GARDEN RIGHT NOW:

Daisies - lots of them, wish I had room to plant a whole field of them. They are so cute!
This photo (above) was an experiment with an extremely shallow depth of field f 1.8.
I like the way it turned out actually.

Honeysuckle vine on the trellis. My favorite this about this plant/vine is that it attracts hummingbirds. I've seen them a few times this year already,
but haven't been able to get a photo yet.... there is still time!

Poppies! I planted these from seed that a flickr friend sent to me. He owns a seed company in Colorado ~ Botanical Interests. This is just one variety of two types of poppies that I planted. This one is Flander's Poppy.

Cornflower - this is a perennial looks kinda like a thistle or a bachelor button!

Look what I spotted on the cornflower yesterday when I came home from work!!! A beautiful swallowtail butterfly. I was able to get a couple of shots of it before big ole moose scared it off!

And of course I can't forget the pond - it seems to be blooming frogs right now. I've counted a total of 6 so far. They are pretty small though. I wonder how big they will get?

I am so glad it is officially summer finally. It's my favorite season, it always has been. I love being able to go out without a coat! Just slip on a pair of shoes and walk outside and enjoy my yard and gardens. I like going for walks with Bill and the dogs. I love taking trips to the beach and local parks. We sometimes have a campfire in the back yard, it's so relaxing just to sit and watch the fire. When I am old and retired, I want to live somewhere where the summers are long and there is preferably no long cold winters!

THE GREAT BEE SWARM OF 2008!

On Thursday evening, Emily and I noticed a swarm of bees in our magnolia tree. At first the sight of it scared me. I have had some slightly allergic reaction to stings in the past and I worry that with each additional sting, it could get worse. My first instinct was "Call an Exterminator!". Friday at work, I did some research on the Internet about bee swarms and learned a lot. The bees are not normally aggressive when they swarm. It is a natural part of their life cycle. I also learned that I should call a bee keeper rather than an exterminator. So I did some more research and found one in our area.

The beekeeper couldn't make it out on Friday, but said that since it was cloudy, rainy, stormy weather, that the bees would not go anywhere. He said he would be by early on Saturday morning. (like 5:30 am early). Well, I was up between 5:00 and 6:30 and he didn't show up, so I went back to bed. My cell phone rang around 7:45 am and he said he had come by and tried to remove the swarm, but had slipped on his step ladder while holding the branch and had sent the bees flying. He said he would come back in the afternoon after they had a chance to settle down. Around 1:00 pm, I went out to look and most of the swarm had settled back on a branch in the tree. I went inside to get my camera, but once I went out, they were flying around again and had left the tree. Bill and I stood in the back yard and watched for a while to see where they were all headed. They ended up settling on the squirrel feeder on the side of the big tree in our back yard.

The bee keeper finally came back and began the process of collecting the swarm. This time he came prepared with a smoker and a veil. I learned that the bees are very "scent driven" the use pheromones. The smoke is used to mask their alarm pheromone, so they don't all panic and get aggressive. After smoking, he began to gently scrape the bees into a plastic container with his gloved hands.

He then asked if he could pry the squirrel feeder off of the tree. We didn't mind, since we don't use it anyway. At one point, he spotted the queen, quickly removed his glove and grabbed her with his bare hand. He took her to his truck and put her in a pill bottle. He borrowed some Windex to spray the spot where they had gathered around the feeder. This was to remove the pheromones that they left there. It work and they didn't settle back down on the spot, but went into the bucket with the other bees instead.
He managed to get almost the entire swarm (estimated to be around 4,000 bees) into the bucket. He was taking them to his home were he would use them to start a new hive. He said he has about 30 or so.

There were maybe 50 left flying around. The moved on after an hour.
This turned out to bee a really cool learning experience! :-)