Spring came right on time this year, today was beautifully warm and the insects were out in force. I will have to look up what some are, including the biggest ladybirds I have ever seen. But it was nice to see these old friends, native bees (Tetragonula carbonara, I think). We used to get them in Sydney, although it is a marginal climate for them there, but here they were swarming around some Bok Choi and Pak Choi that have gone to flower. There are plenty of european honey bees too, making a lot of noise, but the native bees outnumber them. Honeybees are much larger though. I like this photo because you can see the pollen sacks on the bee that’s flying.
One of the many plans for later on, when the garden is more settled and there isn’t such a big ‘to do’ list, is to get or make some hives for the Tetragonula bees. Apparently you can get a kg of honey per hive per year; plenty for a household if you have a few hives, so seeing these wild gives me good hope for that plan. It also reinforces the value of leaving vegetables to flower. I haven’t grown these ‘asian greens’ before, and have now learned first hand that it’s true that you either harvest them young or lose them as vegetables, but letting them go to flower has two advantages; I can also pull the plants and give them to the chickens, which love them.