Bumble Bees at work my little visitor

Whilst at work I had myself a little visitor or should I say two!

These little fellows were helping me weigh up some seed. It was so nice seeing these majestic creatures flying around me and then landing on my seed.

I believe this species is Psithyrus Vestalis otherwise known as the Cuckoo bumblebee.

I had this little guy land on the sleeve of my jumper where he must have sat relaxing for almost an hour where he landed.

I read somewhere that these little fella's can be quite a nasty little thing to other bee species and will work their magic at wiping out other queen bees.

There are only 6 cuckoo bumblebee species in the UK. The 2 main features that these bees have that set them apart from other bumblebees include: Back legs that are covered in hair, with no pollen baskets – you will never see a cuckoo bumblebee with pollen lumps on its legs. The wings that appear dusky or dark.

Cutting back the lavender

So this week other then being at work, I decided to take on the big challenge of sorting out parts of the garden for winter.
I managed to cut the grass which seemed to take forever and a day as it was damp. As well as cutting back the lavender. Now I've never cut the lavender back before now so I'm not sure how low I shouldve gone, but I still have some green showing on the top so I gave it a shorter at the sides and a little longer on the top kinda cut. It looks so much neater but hopefully it will survive.

Next on the task was to burn all the lavender. It was damp when I started burning and not to windy, so I checked the neighbours gardens to make sure no washing was out and I let loose on the burning bin.

Very few words needed today!

When looking around my scrapbooking desk, I found this :

Painting a room.... or 2!

This week I have been determined to paint my hallway and living room.
So far so good I'm the living room. As for the hallway I'm on the 4th coat of white paint still trying to cover up that dark dank magnolia!
We decided to paint it white to lighten up the thin corridor and add white accessories in time. It's definitely a lot brighter but until the carpets are down we won't be able to tell how much difference there will be ..... roll on Saturday.

I love bumble bees !

In our garden we have 8 rather large lavender bushes, that play a role in keeping the bumbles that I love so busy. I know I've posted pictures of them before so dont judge its just for a dying breed that is so necessary in our day and age ( if you don't know what they do then look it up).

The happy little buzzing that I hear all day from the garden and the zipping little bodies in a rush to get somewhere and yet nowhere.

After what seemed to be forever of me trying to convince TJ that the bees will not hurt us we ended up saving one from drowning in the paddling pool.

I asked him to hold it on the peg not just for pictures but to build his confidence up and help him to understand that bees are not built to hurt us,that they are just busy working their butts off to make their Queen bee happy.

Half drowned blonde bumble bee

Honey bee