Our red Bee Balm flowers have gone wild...now I read that we should cut them in half so that they stay a nice size. Well, too late for that, they are 4 to 5 feet tall and are the very favorite flower of a whole bunch of big yellow and black bumblebees. I don't know if bumblebees collect necter from them and create honey like the little honey bees do. I would suppose so, but I'll have to check my favorite "go to" place, the internet.
Yesterday I watched several hummingbird moths sampling the Bee Balm flowers. At first I thought they were baby hummingbirds.....although I have never seen hummingbirds in our area. They hovered over the flowers just like hummingbirds, thus, I suppose, the name, Hummingbird moth or hawkmoth. They are about the size of my thumb and their little wings beat frantically. I looked them up on the internet and found that there are several species....since this little guy never was still and I didn't have a camera (photo here was from the internet) I don't know what species they were. I had never seen one before, and between watching the bumble bees and the moth, I spend a good half hour in the garden.Later I found that they emerge from eggs laid by green caterpillers, probably on the honeysuckle vine which was planted last year. New vine, new visitors to the garden.
