On 15/9/08 13:30, in article ,
"Martin" wrote:

On Mon, 15 Sep 2008 10:30:37 +0100, Sacha wrote:

On 15/9/08 10:12, in article ,
"Martin" wrote:

On Mon, 15 Sep 2008 09:38:40 +0100, Sacha wrote:

On 15/9/08 08:11, in article ,
"mogga" wrote:

On Sun, 14 Sep 2008 23:43:47 +0100, Sacha
wrote:

On 14/9/08 22:25, in article ,
"Martin" wrote:

On Sun, 14 Sep 2008 16:46:24 +0100, Sacha
wrote:

They're all here, all over the Mentha spicata 'Swiss'! I don't think
I've
ever seen so many bees in one small area ( about 8 x 9cm pots)

It's the second coming.


Third, fourth and fifth by way they were all clustering round it!

Is there a list of bee friendly plants or will anything with flowers
do?

This is helpful:

http://www.bumblebee.org/flowerlist.htm

We don't have a shortage of bumblebees. Have you?

Not really but probably not as many as we used to see. Despite being pretty
close to Buckfast Abbey, we don't see as many honey bees as we'd expect,
either.

but no shortage of white van driving Glaswegians?

You're being a bit obscure, Grasshopper?!

That's why the ones we saw on the mint caught our eye yesterday,
especially. But in the last couple of dry, fairly fine days, we've seen
bees and butterflies and the birds are singing as if it were springtime! I
even saw two robins squaring up to each other yesterday - most peculiar!
And while it's nothing to do with bees, I have to boast about our clever
nursery staff who have grown some stupendous pumpkins on the compost heap!
They have had a competition and one of them got prizes 1 to 6! There are
well over a dozen huge fruits, mellowing beautifully and lots of baby ones
that are probably not going to make it *and* there are still flowers coming
on. I really must go and take some photos......

It seems to be a good year for marrows, gourds and pumpkins and what grapes we
have are delicious.

Our grapes are still a bit 'tart' but I'll try again tomorrow.

--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.com
South Devon
(new website online)