May 7

The bumblebee has been more frequent around the garden this week. I suppose she has been out of hibernation for several weeks, but the unusually cool temperatures in April probably weren’t very encouraging.

It’s nearly 70 degrees out today, and I am watching her just now flitting among the periwinkle in the front of the house with apparent distaste, then moving on to the grape hyacinth that divides the driveway from the garden. She is disproportionately large, landing near the top of one hyacinth only to have it bend over with the weight.

The clover is one of her later summer fares, and our own red and white clover has yet to even emerge. In fact, the bumblebee is one of the very few insects that can successfully pollinate the clover, so their relationship is one of mutualism. I read once that Australians imported clover years ago, for it is a ready soil regenerating plant, like the legumes which return nitrogen to the soil. The clover miserably failed, because the Australian biomes lacked bumblebees to help with propagation.