Garden in May

The Cercis siliquastrum - Judas Tree came into flower during the first week of May, but it is now almost over for this year.

It has very pretty blossom and lovely heart shaped leaves. Our tree was purchased as a young sapling, but it now towers high up into the sky.

Summer colour has arrived in the garden - predominately showing shades of pink and purple. 

I am a great lily lover, and these Zantedeschia - white arum lilies are the first summer lilies to have opened.

Nectaroscordum siculum - Sicilian honey garlic 

Lots of free foxgloves turn up every year in various shades of pink and white, but they are very welcome. 

The heather has now reached its finale, but it has been flowering continuously since January.

five tunnels filled with a sixth one now completed since this photo

I cleaned our solitary bee hotel during March hoping that some new residents would decide to move in during late April. Solitary bees are non aggressive and much smaller than honey bees. 

Last week I suddenly noticed that one of the tunnels had already been completed and sealed off by a Mason bee, and in the last few days five more nesting tunnels have been finished. 

The bees build a series of cells inside each of the tunnels starting at the far end and gradually moving forward. They deposit pollen inside each cell and an egg. The pollen is mixed with nectar and is there to provide food for the developing larvae. Finally each individual cell is sealed up with some mud. Each tunnel holds roughly 12 eggs, and so my six tunnels represent approximately 72 little bees, which will hopefully develop and fly away next April. A bee manages to complete a whole tunnel from start to finish within two days. The eggs at the far end of the tunnel are all female with those nearest to the entrance being male. This enables the males to leave first so that they are ready and waiting to mate with one the females as they emerge from the tunnels. Once they have mated the males job is done, and they die. 

I am now watching for the leaf-cutter bees to arrive, they normally turn up slightly later. The leaf-cutter bees cut holes and semi-circles into the leaves that they collect which they then use to line and separate each cell. It is quite a work of art that they perform inside each tunnel.

During October the bee hotel should be placed in a cool dry place for the winter and then put back outside during March the following year. This will help to protect the bees from winter weather, and importantly prevent them being attacked by parasites.

Solitary bees are very important pollinators so having a hotel is a great and very easy way for us to help them. They are fun to watch, and require very little maintenance or assistance from their hotel proprietors!!! 

Solitary Bee Hotel

The majority of people will know that honeybees in the UK tend to live in a hive which is owned and managed by a beekeeper. Their colony consists of one Queen, hundreds of Drones, and thousands of Workers. Our fat, furry bumblebees also live in colonies which are normally located within a hole beneath the ground. However, the lifestyle of the solitary bee, that nests in my Bee Hotel has a completely different.

Whitetail bumblebee (Bombus lucorum) collecting nectar from
 Lythrum salicaria - Purple Loosestrife - a good flower for both bees and butterflies

There are over 250 species of solitary bee in this country, and as the name implies, they live alone. However, the various species will happily nest alongside one another as they do in my hotel. They do not produce honey, do not have a queen but they do play a vital role in pollinating our crops, flowers, and trees. It is known that they actually pollinate plants much more efficiently than the honey bee. They are non-aggressive because they do not have any honey to protect, and in general the males do not even have a sting. 

Each tunnel in my hotel holds roughly 12 - 15 eggs, which become a larvae before finally emerging as a bee during the following Spring. The solitary bee creates a ball of pollen, called a pollen loaf, at the far end of the tunnel which she moistens with nectar and then lays an egg on top of it. This will feed the larvae during the months ahead. She then builds a partition wall and repeats the process again, and again until she reaches the exit of the tunnel. This she then seals off with a saliva like substance made from mud or resin, or in the case of the leaf-cutter bee, masticated and cut leaves. Importantly the eggs nearest to the entrance are usually male enabling them to emerge first so that they are ready to mate with the female bees when they emerge from the other tunnels. The male then dies within two weeks of leaving the tunnel.
I can thoroughly recommend having a solitary bee hotel. They are not expensive, and if you are handy you could construct one yourself (there are instructions on the internet). They must sit in a sunny location facing south, at least 1-1½ metres above ground, and have plenty of 'bee likeable' flowers growing nearby. Purple Loosestrife, Lavender, Buddleia, and Echinops all grow in my garden along the flight path to the hotel. It is fun to watch them coming and going whilst laying their eggs and then sealing up the exit hole. Young and old can take pleasure in watching a bee hotel, and at the end of the day you know that each year you have probably added at the very least 100 more new bees to the bee population. 
During the winter months put the hotel somewhere dry and cold i.e. garage, carport. then replace it back in the spring. It is a good idea to take it apart then and give it a good clean, use a diluted solution of bleach, let it thoroughly dry, and then reassemble it.

I was checking how many tunnels had been filled when suddenly this little bee popped out, which I believe to be a Red Mason bee. You can see pollen around her mouth, so I imagine that she has been making a pollen and nectar loaf. When I checked at the end of the day she had almost finished filling the tunnel and spent the night at the entrance guarding her eggs, which she then proceeded to seal during following day. There are now nine of the tunnels filled which equates to over a 100 eggs to date, and there are still about 3 laying weeks to go. 

Convolvulus - blue ensign
A few weeks ago I mentioned that I had tried to grow a blue flower pyramid from seeds that I had planted. Unfortunately only the base is blue as currently the Ipomoea 'Heavenly Blue' morning glories are a bit slow climbing to the top. but I should really have placed them facing south rather than north. You can just see one of the morning glories making it's way up the frame on the left.