Tuesday, February 25, 2014

What’s blooming? 2.25.14

I have been feeding my Honey Bees so I try to keep check on what is blooming. They have been building comb and bringing in pollen so they must be feeding a lot of larva and young bees.

This is my Bottle Brush bush….you can see my hives in the background. By mid morning this is just humming with bees.

I have 2 in the front yard and each is twice this size. There are 2 smaller ones in the back yard also. I like them because they have a few blooms all year around.

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I ride my bike down the road to check on the Palm Trees in the tree farms. Mexican Fan is blooming but early morning only one or two bees.

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By noon they were starting to work it. Only a dozen or so bees on it now…I’ll check it later.

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These are less than a mile from the house but no bees on it yet. Don’t know what this palm is.

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There are several Queen Palms blooming…no bees on it at noon.

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They are working this plant that grows like ground cover…I think it is some kind of Wild Black Berry.

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Not sure what this is but grows wild along the road…sometimes mixed with the plant above.

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and the Spanish Needle.

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This Stork watched me ride up and down the road.

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and a Turkey headed into our yard then made a detour to the neighbors. Looks like a young Tom…you can see it’s short beard.

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But the surprise of the day was this little guy…

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I was walking the grass road back in among the trees when I spotted it. I was able to get a few pictures while I kept walking….and then it spotted me. I took a few more pictures and a few more steps toward it then it turned around and disappeared. I’ll be watching the back yard for it at night now. This is less than an 1/8 of a mile…walking…from my house…through the woods..about half that.

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Bobcat….I saw one a few months ago…could be the same one but did not look in as good a shape as this one. Hope we have a pair.

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I like living in an area where animals can live with us. Jim figures this might be the reason we don’t see as many Raccoons as we used to. We were over run a few years ago.

I think it is safe to say I don’t need to feed anymore, with all those plants blooming less than a quarter mile from my house….that’s only what I can see  from the road.

I’ll keep watch on the palms but they must have something closer or these blooms would be loaded with Honey Bees.

Might have to put a strap over the hives….don’t know if Bobcats have a taste for honey.