Sleeping Bees in the Native Patch

It was such a delight to discover sleeping bees around our mostly California garden patch this morning.

Seeing these bees at rest on flowers and leaves gives such a fulfilling feeling, to know that we are creating a habitat that wasn't in the yard when we moved here more than one and a half years ago.

In the above image a Summer Longhorn male bee is sleeping on a blossom of the Cosmic Evolution Coreopsis plant.

Here is another Summer Longhorn male bee sleeping on another blossom of the Cosmic Evolution Coreopsis plant. Note the yellow marking at the bottom of its face and the very long antennae.

Last year I planted this coreopsis in the patch.

There were very few blossoms on the plant, and they were quite small.

Then the plant went dormant in the autumn.

I patiently watered it every weekend, after the rainy season, but it looked like it would never grow again.

A few months ago the coreopsis produced new leaves.

Last month it started to produce its lovely blossoms.

This is the second time this summer that I discovered a honey bee sleeping on a lambs' ear leaf.

Another Summer Longhorn male bee was sleeping on one of the California Delta Sunflower blossoms. I planted three of these sunflower seedlings in the early Spring.

For some reason they aren't growing tall, and producing few blossoms.

Nothing like the Delta Sunflowers we planted last year, that grew to six feet tall with many branches and blossoms.

But these blossoms still provide food and shelter for the bees, and that's what really matters.