As much as I love my domesticated bees, I’ve grown obsessed with the wild bumblers buzzing through my garden. I feel as obliged to them as I do to the honeybees living in the woman-made hive near the shed.
When my girls started spilling out of their home last month, I quick-quick built them a third story to spread out in.
When I noticed a bumblebee — nearly as fat as the tip of my index finger, methodically working her way up and down the stalks of a volunteer clump of purple penstemon, I started to feel like I’d better get planting.
I couldn’t take my eyes off of her as she moved from bloom to bloom, jiggling the flowers in a process tomato growers appreciate and call “buzz pollination” when it happens on their plants. In she went — a tight squeeze — her bright yellow behind still vibrating in the breeze. Her process was plodding, but still lovely, and will be encouraged with more penstemon, perhaps some columbine and sunset foxglove, whose blossoms are throaty enough to receive her.
Dana Coffield, The Denver Post
