We have bees!

A couple of years ago we bought a wall mountable bee house from Aldi to see if we would get anything use it.  We almost forgot about it, it certainly wasn't used last year by bees but this year they have moved in.  Hurrah.  I've only recently bought my new camera and have not got used to it yet so I apologise for the poor quality and the lack of clarity but you can see them coming and going.

What we have are Mason Bees.  Industrious little no-sting solitary bees that are far more efficient at pollinating than the honey bee but they don't produce honey.  What they do is go collect pollen and they fill those little tubes, constantly returning to the same tube until they have filled a section of it with enough pollen and then they lay an egg and then seal it with dirt to create a cell and they do this until they have filled the entire tube.  Once they have filled one tube, they move onto another one and do this until they are finished laying eggs.

Update:  On 7th June, on BBC's Springwatch, Chris Packham and Michaela Strachan done a feature on Mason Bees.  Its really interesting and shows how the bees create the cells and even shows the grubs that have hatched from the eggs.  The section runs from 15:20 to about 21:45 and includes information about the Great British Bee Count, which I took part in this year and found to be both informative and really enjoyable and thankfully I am not a "wafter" or "panicker", I am very calm around bees and so was able to participate easily.  I learned that there are far more different species of bees around my garden than I could ever have imagined.

Camping in Somerset part III

Being Pagan's we cannot come down here and not visit Glastonbury and Glastonbury Tor when we are camping so close to it.  Its a bit of a drive from where we are camping and parking, well yes, parking was a bit of a nightmare but it had to be done.

Obviously I didn't walk around Glastonbury itself taking photos of shops but WOW, the shops.  Unfortunately we are on a tight budget, isn't nearly everybody at the moment, so I couldn't go buying lovely goodies but I did admire lots of lovely things for sale.  We vowed to come back at sometime in the future when we do have some money to spend because it is a Pagan and Wiccan shopper's delight.

We did want to visit the Chalice Well and Garden but dogs are not allowed so we had to walk on by and carry on up to Glastonbury Tor and St Michaels Tower.  OMG I am so unfit.  It is one hell of climb up.  You might look at the photos and think "a gentle incline".  Try getting up there, its not that easy but the views are stunning.

It is really windy up on the top and it takes away that last bit of breath that you have after climbing up that hill to get there!

St Michaels Tower is roofless but amazingly enchanting and a little haunting but you just want to stay there and look up, its a weird feeling.

I don't need to write anything, you can read the plaque for yourself.

We went back to the tent and collapsed in a heap.  We were all exhausted and all had to lie down for a while and recover before having our evening meal.  Come and join me in Part IV.