Bumble Bees

My garden is full of plants that bees love, it is interesting to watch what bees show up on which plants. Bumble bees love lavender and monarda. Sunflower bees love well, sunflowers. Honey bees and carder bees love lambs ear. Sweat bees are on the sunflowers and echinacea.

It should come at no surprise to anyone that I fell in love with Shevaun Doherty’s paintings of bees. I met her in Greece, and watched her paint a bumble bee that was found on the sidewalk after a storm passed through. She is passionate and knowledgeable about bees, and how to paint them. Feeling inspired and motivated, I included a Golden Northern Bumble Bee in my paintbrush painting.

It is true, hummingbirds are the main pollinators of paintbrush, but these fuzzy bees, with their long tongues, are also pollinators. It is a challenge to make a dead bee look alive. My husband found and saved this bee that had gotten inside our yurt and died. She has been a pleasure to study and paint. We also sealed up the hole she got in so her sisters would have a better fate (and so the flies would stay out).

I plan to learn more about Utah’s native bees and paint more too.