Ah, ceanothus, our native bee magnet!

The Ray Hartman ceanothus in our garden is in full bloom now, and is absolutely gorgeous with bluish purple blossoms. A native California plant, it is drought tolerant (!) and thrives with basically no care needed. The blossoms have a lovely scent, almost like honey. And what a bee magnet! If you look carefully at the picture, you will see at least 10 honeybees there. When I stand next to the shrub, it sounds like a beehive, full of activity.

Yesterday around noon, I counted 40 honeybees on the ceanothus within a period of 2 minutes! Here is one of our heroes, happily feasting on the nectar. Note the yellow pollen "basket" behind its wing.

And another honeybee getting its nectar. Interesting that there are more honeybees in the ceanothus this year than last year. We observed a lot of bumblebees then.

Wow! as I sit here late at night, writing this post, it's raining!!! It's not coming down heavy, but IT'S RAINING!!!