A Bevy of Bumbles

Well, we here a lot of news these days about bee die-offs, pollinator shortages, pesticide poisonings and other doomsday proclamations but things are looking just peachy in our little neighborhood. I went out in the yard about 10 days ago and what I saw made my jaw drop open. I saw a bumblebee bacchanalia on the sedum that has rapidly spread in our yard from one plant that I inherited from my dad's container garden collection. 

You can see a few honeybees on the sedum too in the video. Bees always love this plant and its nice because it is a late season bloomer. But I have never seen anything like this. The kids and I were petting the bumblebees and they were so nectar-drunk that they didn't care a wink. Here are a few stills - you can even see pollen grains on their fuzzy little backs (click on the photos to enlarge them).

Oh, and here's another picture from earlier in the summer. I put out one of the filters I use for cleaning beeswax and it's lovely smell attracted a plethora of pollinators. Here you can see some honey bees, a red wasp, some yellow-jackets and a teensy wittle itty bitty fly in the upper left all happily co-existing (well, there was a little jousting, but they were hanging out on this together all morning that day).