We've had a pretty mild winter so far in the greater Portland area. We haven't had any snow yet in the Willamette Valley and our local snowpack in the Mt. Hood area is about 30% of normal. This week we've had a couple of days of record high daytime temperatures in the low 60's (F).
I was walking with my grandson and 2 granddogs and we noticed lots of bee activity in a patch of Heather (at least that's what my wife calls it). Mostly Honeybees and Bumblebees, also a few others that I couldn't identify. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get any bee pictures because I had a bag of dog poop in one hand and was trying to control the dogs with the other.
It got me thinking about beacon_dave and site preparation for BeeBox. I'm looking forward to learning about how his BeeBox does this season.
When we got home I took a look at the only two plants (Hellebores and Camelias) that are currently blooming in our yard and found that we also are having bee activity. The bees weren't very cooperative so I didn't get any good closeup pics like Dave gets.
Older granddog
Good eye test to see if you can spot the honeybee in the next two pics. The third pic is of a bee that I can't identify. And I wasn't able to get a pic of the one bumblebee that I saw.
It looks like we will be back to colder and wetter weather next week. I am hopeful for a good bee season this spring and summer.
