BEE careful!

 

In Arizona it is now the time to get out in the garden and plant, plant, plant.  The temperature has finally dropped from the triple digits and the 90 something days are fewer.  Before one plants however, the hot summertime over growth and neglect must be trimmed away.  This is what we found while trimming up the bougainvillea.  A birdhouse full of honey bees!

Glen gifted me with this trio of birdhouses for Christmas a few years back.  They have been decorative and fun to have.  No bird has ever expressed interest and we were very surprised to see the bees.  I would have loved to keep them but I could also visualize a grandchild knocking it over.  It is especially worrisome given that we lost a back fence neighbor years ago when he tried to take out the hive that was forming in a corner of his deck cover.  We didn't want to just kill the bees either.  So . . .

Glen called the bee keeping BIL who recommended that we go online and find the local bee keeping association.  We did and a bee keeper showed up after dark (the above picture shows just half of the bees that would have gathered by dark), contained them, and took them to a new home.  Of course there were a few escapees who were still buzzing around but day by day they have dissipated.  To have a hive, you have to have a queen.

So far we have planted out over 150 plants.  Every morning we have been going out and working for a couple of hours.

We decided to try something other than Icelandic poppies in these pots this year.  We purchased 5 different colored New Mexico geraniums from A&P Nursery instead.

This side yard plant out almost did us in yesterday morning.  I can hardly wait for all the future color.  I also did my window box and Glen planted the pots by the lamp post.  Still to go?  The backyard pots and my vegetable garden will be our focus the next couple of days.  My son said that Utah was 42 degrees and that the mountains were covered with snow today.  I really do enjoy the best of two worlds!