The first dandelion of 2020 showed up on May 14th, exactly the same day as it did in 2016, despite Snowmageddon.
First dandelion. May 14th, 2020. Flatrock, Isle of Newfoundland.
Has spring finally sprung in Newfoundland? Maybe. Maybe not. Probably not.
Honey bee on dandelion. (May 16th, 2020.)
More slow motion shots of honey bees on crocuses. For people stuck at home looking for a break, it’s not bad to watch this one in full-screen mode in the highest resolution. No audio required, though you might like that too.
Honey bees on crocus flower. (April 14th, 2020, Flatrock, Isle of Newfoundland.)
This time the bees are in better focus (though I’m still working out some of the kinks).
Don’t ask me what variety of crocuses these are because I have no idea. (Update: But apparently they’re commonly called Snow Crocuses. I’ve revised the title of this post to reflect this newfound knowledge.)
The video was shot on a pocket-sized camera called a Sony RX-100v.
A 113-second video of my bees waking up from the winter and doing they’re thing in slow motion, including collection pollen from crocuses. I’m so glad I planted those.
My friend, Little Bobby Hirchhorn, turned me onto some flowering plants last summer that he said my honey bees might be attracted to. First up are the willow branches that look like this:
Sprigs of wild willow.
I’ve learned that the poppies I saw my honey bees on yesterday are a variety referred to as the Ziar Breadseed Poppy, a variant of Papaver somniferum, or possibly exactly that.
Ziar Breadseed Poppy (October 19th, 2019).
I will be planting as many of these as I can next year to give my bees an extra hit of pollen before winter, that’s for sure.
First of all, photographing honey bees and doing it well boils down to 90% bad luck and 10% good luck. The bees in some of these photos are out of focus. That’s how it goes.
Second of all, the colour red in these poppies doesn’t seem real to me. On film, it looks almost fake. But it’s real.
And I forgot my third point, but check out these poppies (click the images for a better view):
Continue reading
I can now add wild roses to my casual list of honey bee friendly flowers in Newfoundland.
So I pulled out my honey extractor and used it to whip some honey out of about six or seven medium frames. The honey wasn’t completely cured. That is, it wasn’t completely capped and some of the nectar was still floating around fancy and loose and therefore, technically, it wasn’t honey. But it was (and is) technically delicious, so who cares? Not me. I don’t sell it for public consumption, but I eat it all the time and so do my friends. It’s probably not a bad honey for making mead.
Here’s a 15-minute video that shows how the whole thing played out (and a less-than-5-minute version for those who want to cut to the chase):
Continue reading
I’ve been told by people with a better eye for flowers than me that this is likely a variant of Elderberry, probably Sambucus canadensis.
Elderberry, Sambucus canadensis (August 20th, 2019, Portugal Cove, NL.)
My honey bees seem to like it, though I didn’t get a photo of a honey bee on it in this series of photos.
Continue reading
ERRATUM: Uh, I guess I was asleep at the wheel when I made this video. The title in the video refers to this flower as Orange Hawkweed, which it definitely is not. I’ll fix that as soon as I can.
Here’s a slowmo video I shot on my cell phone of a honey bee on Cow Vetch (vicia cracca).
If you look closely at the beginning of the video clip, you can see that the honey bee has its tongue (proboscis) stuck in the flower and then yanks it out.
More honey bee friendly flowers in are listed in Newfoundland Honey Bee Forage.
