Bees

During our study of Botany and the roll bees play, we have had some amazing bee experiences.  A few weeks ago, during a birthday party in our backyard, there suddenly came a swarm of bees right over the rose bushes, toward all of us!  As soon as they were discovered, children went running!  And a few adults. But then the bees turned the other way, in search of a quieter place to rest, I'm sure!  (We have since learned that they probably got too crowded in their hive and the queen and hundreds of her bees went out looking for another home.) 

Once, while reading out loud to the kids out in the backyard on a quilt, we saw a bee on a clover flower and could actually see the pollen on its hind legs.  Now, I don't ever remember stopping and looking at bees so closely, I'm sure I always ran away!  But man, bees are amazing! 

Another time, recently, I was watching the bees at the orange blossoms.  I actually saw the proboscis go into get the nectar! Never, ever saw a bee that close to see that, nor did I care.

My poor 8yo son got stung a few weeks ago.  He didn't know what had happened, but after investigating, we found a stunned bee on his stuffed dog that he had been hugging outside.  Sadly, we squished the bee, instead of looking at him, but we had some pretty upset kids.

And lastly, my dear husband played an important part as head of our school and took the brunt of a bee so that his dear children could check out the stinger in our Eye Clops.  It was cool.  He tried to save the bee so we could look at him up close, but when he grabbed the bee's wing to pick him up, he flew off.  Oh well.  But...a little while later, our dd somehow found the same bee (or maybe another one that just stung someone? Nahh, it was our bee.)  He was on a rose, dead.  So he got to go meet the big Eye.  It was so neat seeing the hair and pollen.  I'm not usually a bug person, but I am fascinated with bees now!

One more.  I am reading a wonderfu book called "Keeper of the Bees" by Gene Stratton-Porter.  In one chapter called Because of God, a little kid describes the miracle workings of bees.  I highly recommend it.  (It's not just about bees)

 

Spring Blessings

When we moved into our home in December, I knew there would be some surprise flowers popping up in the spring.  I wasn't disappointed!  We have 11 rose bushes along the west side of our back yard.  I trimmed them down in Dec and they are doing great!  Unfortunately, the aphids like them, too, but we're working on them. Here are some of my favorites:

Yellow Roses have always been my favorite rose

Red rose, I'm sure it has another name, it looks a little different than the others.  I will read my Sunset Western Garden book someday.

This pink one has a nice smell to it.

This lavender rose is my favorite for the lovely fragrant. Reminds me of my Grandmother.

And this "orange" rose is my favorite because of it's unique color.

It took awhile for these Irises to pop out in my backyard.  For awhile, I didn't think anything would bloom.

These Bearded Irises (I think) are in the front yard.  They aren't lasting very long because of our hot/cold weather.

Azaleas.  These were perfect for our Botany study.  They came out just in time for us to dissect a couple and look at the stamen and pollen and other parts on our awesome Eye Clops microscope.

I don't know what these are, but there are quite a few of these little bushes around the yards.  The ones in front bloomed the best, so far.  I was surprised to see more purple flowers (another favorite :)  We planted Lavender and another little purple thing that I forgot the name of, nearby.

My favorite (really!) scent in the whole wide world...Orange Blossoms!  I love, love, love, sitting outside in the morning with my cup of coffee and smelling this sweet, wonderful scent.  Spring is such a treat in my area!  Hot, hot summer will be here very soon.  But I will have to wait until fall to see how many oranges we end up with.  It is looking pretty good so far!  It is neat to watch the bees pollinate all of these flowers.  Have you ever looked close enough to see a bee's proboscis uncurl into a flower?  I did just the other day, for the first time in my life.  I am learning so much as a Homeschool Mom!! (Ok, so I'm still learning how to spell proboscis:)

And as an extra special treat from God.... an Apricot tree!!    One of my favorite soft fruits of summer This tree is in our neighbor's yard, but a lot of it hangs over into our yard.  When we moved in, it had lost most of it's leaves.  I thought it was maybe a Cottonwood tree or something that doesn't give off fruit.  We had the prettiest pink blossoms on it.  I might have a picture somewhere.  Then came the leaves.  I thought about cutting it back, off of our shed.  I am so glad I didn't!  One day, the kids came running in and said it was a peach tree!  There were lots of little green fruit all over it.  I hadn't even noticed.  I knew they were apricots right away.  My great-grandmother had one in her front yard and I loved picking them right off the tree and eating them.  Nowadays, I have to buy them at the store, and they are expensive, and the season is so short.  So this was such a blessing to me.  Just a little special treat from God.  This whole house was such a blessing from the Lord. :)

We have tried to plant Pansies, Impatiense (sp), herbs, veggies, but they aren't doing very well.  Oh well, we'll try again next year.