Heading into Winter

I just read a couple of interesting posts on other beekeeping websites about bees in winter. The first is a thorough overview about what honeybees' lives are like during the wintertime, with details on how they cluster to stay warm and when and why they'll leave the hive in the colder months. See this page on All Things Plants for more details.

Then from Bee Rancher Buzz, a bee blog based in San Francisco comes a little tip about bee-friendly gardening as we head into winter. If there's something flowering in your garden, why not leave it for the bees? The blogger talks about letting herbs flower to give the bees a late-season treat. We did this with herbs this year as well as with some veggies in the garden that went to seed. In particular, we found that the bees loved fennel when it flowered. It may be a bit late for us Seattle gardeners to leave much to the bees, but if you're doing some cleanup and find something that's still flowering, why not leave it a little longer for our bee friends?