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  • Author Author: ralphjy
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Bees in Oregon in Winter

ralphjy

A positive aspect of the "Save the Bees Challenge" is that I'm learning a lot about bees and plants in Oregon.  I've never really thought about bees being active during the winter.  Or even where bees in winter would come from...

   recently mentioned in a comment about Snowdrops currently flowering where he lives and how bees might end up missing out on them.  Funny, but I had one of those "Speak of the Devil" moments (or Speak of the Bees) today.  We've been having our typical Oregon winter which is cold and dreary, sometimes rainy but mainly dark and cloudy.  This week it started to warm up and today we had a high temperature of 57 F (14 C) and a nice sunny day with my solar panels max'ed out.

We took my grandson outside to enjoy the sunshine and my wife pointed out to me that there were bees active in Helleborus flowers that are planted along our deck.  I must admit that I was amazed.  I knew that the Helleborus flowers in winter and tolerates freezing temperatures, but never expected to see bees.  Not even sure where they come from, but they look like honey bees.  I took a few pictures with my phone.

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And, of course, the grand dog enjoyed the sunshine too.

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And I'm learning about plants and animals, too.  We had not planted Snowdrops because I had heard that they are toxic for dogs.  It turns out that the toxicity is in the bulbs, so probably not a problem for the dogs.  When I looked up Helleborus to see when they bloom I discovered that ingesting any part of the plant is toxic.  I guess I need to give the dogs credit for ignoring the plant, but now that I have an infant grandson - I'll need to consider getting rid of those plants or at least moving them behind a fence.

  • We have had a very cold start to winter followed by a very mild January and February, so it will be very interesting to see how well the local bee population emerges in the spring.

  • They do look like honey bees, but it’s hard to tell without a close-up. Probably  an nearby apiary has some hives. The Portland winter is usually rather mild. 

  • Let's hope for no cold snaps that harm the bees that have mistakenly thought it was Spring.  There's a lot of pollinating to do to help the forests recover.
    Anyone else hear "The Circle of Life" playing in their heads?

  • Looks like the bees are off to an early start in Oregon. I've not seen any around here as yet. 

    The decking looks very handy for clamping cameras and stuff onto. You could even have a trainset with onboard cameras... Steam locomotive  I think your ML classifier needs tweaking a bit though... A beagle is not a bee... Slight smile

    A lot of ornamental flowering bulbs appear to be toxic so if any find their way to the surface it is probably a good idea to push them back under the soil. The snowdrops I have originate from a single bulb that appeared in my lawn one year. Presumably dropped by a bird or blown in in the wind at some point. I moved it to the side and its been multiplying around the edge of the lawn ever since. Low maintenance, hardy and good for shady spots under the hedge but relatively low output flower-wise and tends to be very leafy for most of the summer, so smothers the area around it.

    Solar panels maxing out in February sounds promising. Had a bit of sun here yesterday and the 'solar done' LED finally lit up on one of my USB powerbanks,