by Gene Rek
Late January is the beginning of spring for the honeybees. That is when the cedar elm trees begin to blossom, and the bees start bringing in sacks of yellow pollen. Pollen is protein for bees, thus particularly important for a healthy hive.
Today when I was in the woods the trees were buzzing. It’s not unusual to find bees busy in trees in late summer or fall when they might find galls on oak trees or dewy sap on pecan leaves. I was curious as to what was causing all this activity. I was not surprised to find them on the elm trees, but the reason they were there did surprise me. The elms are in bloom! Some of the trees are in full bloom while others are fading.
We received almost 2.5 inches of rain last week. After a brutal summer did this cooling off to ninety degrees fool the trees?
I’ve never observed this before. Maybe being a Master Naturalist is making me more observant of such things.
[Editor’s note: I noticed that mesquite trees were blooming at my ranch this week. iNaturalist wasn’t able to ID my photo, perhaps because they were blooming at an unusual time.]
Nature Along the El Camino Real 