bees - late May 2019

Now here is a flower that attracts bees!

I saw this tulip tree while walking through Regent's Park (Avenue Gardens) and looking into a flower, totally unexpectedly saw lots of bees. I had no idea bees were so attracted to tulip tree flowers.

There is a whole row of tulip trees on the west side of Avenue Gardens. I'm not sure if there's a corresponding row on the other side. Next time I'll walk down that side.

I am so happy to have some bees in my garden - and a few flowers they are visiting. These red / corn /field poppies have self-sown from original "wildflower" plants from the garden centre after seeds were a great failure. Some wildflowers work from seeds and some don't.

the bees are loving the lupins, my photo ended up showing the bee hovering there, I wasn't fast enough to get the photo with it on the flower, I also saw it go up into a foxglove but couldn't get a photo sadly

the lupins are doing well, surprisingly; a couple of others are destroyed by slugs

I am heartbroken the slugs / snails have destroyed my sea holly. They love sea holly, that's why the plants are in pots. The slugs / snails have eaten the flowering stem which I've circled. That's it for this year. I grew those sea holly from seed two years ago. I give in - I am buying 2 replacements from the garden centre!

The slugs / snails have also aggressively eaten the borage, a plant not usually suffering from slug damage.

blackcurrant sage with bee

it's challenging to capture the bees in focus, although this is out of focus it looks like there's a pollen basket on this one

The knautia macedonica have just started to bloom and the bees are all over them. I should be able to get one photo today - that will be my challenge.