I got the rose bush in the ground today, and transplanted the purple cone flower I had to move to make way for it. I noticed a couple of little portulacas of the multitude all around my garden were blooming. They're like little paper flowers.

I also noticed my Sedum spurium is blooming for the first time:


I hope this is as exciting for you as it is for me, but somehow I doubt it could be.

The bumblebees were busy, busy, busy repairing the nest I'd bollocksed Saturday. They were so preoccupied with it, they didn't even notice me. Either that or they were ignoring me, which is not a bad thing, especially for someone deathly allergic to bee stings, but I felt like I'd really offended them. It was certainly not my intention.

Since it's too late in the day to relocate the colony we're going to have to get along. I don't mind their being around, you understand, although I do pay the rent. But so long as they make themselves useful, and aren't always underfoot, I don't have any trouble with putting them up for the summer.

They're not too imposing. Their nests are usually not big. A single female is responsible for initial construction, and they seldom top fifty bees per colony. They don't "overwinter." They nest in one spot for a single season, and move on.

Late last summer a young queen discovered that I never turned my makeshift compost pile in the back corner of my plot, and that it made a delightful nesting spot, so she settled in and got comfy. And I can't blame her. But this autumn I'll fill in my little compost thingy, and brick it over, which is what I was about to do when I discovered the nest in the first place. And that'll be that.

But there's something about bumblebees, isn't there? Maybe it's just the name (which actually derives from the name of the genus, Bombus), but they're not like other bees. They're fuzzier, first of all, and I think, on the whole they're friendlier, too, inasmuch as this is possible for bees, who while considered "social insects" are probably more coworkers than friends under the best of circumstances.

At any rate, while they can sting if provoked, and unlike honey bees can sting more than once, they seem less likely to. So long as you're not allergic (in which case they'll send you right into anaflactic shock) their sting's bearable, according to both The Starr and The Justin O. Schmidt sting pain indices.

And they do a lot of good in the garden, as everybody knows. But despite their gentle and helpful nature, they're going extinct, like everybody else on the planet except us. Go figure.

And when they're gone, you'll not only have to pollinate your own damn flowers yourself (and I'd like to see you try), but Nature will have lost one more of her humble philosophers, as Emerson called them...

BURLY, dozing humble-bee,
Where thou art is clime for me.
Let them sail for Porto Rique,
Far-off heats through seas to seek;
I will follow thee alone,	5
Thou animated torrid-zone!
Zigzag steerer, desert cheerer,
Let me chase thy waving lines;
Keep me nearer, me thy hearer,
Singing over shrubs and vines.	10
Insect lover of the sun,
Joy of thy dominion!
Sailor of the atmosphere;
Swimmer through the waves of air;
Voyager of light and noon;	15
Epicurean of June;
Wait, I prithee, till I come
Within earshot of thy hum,—
All without is martyrdom.
When the south wind, in May days,	20
With a net of shining haze
Silvers the horizon wall,
And, with softness touching all,
Tints the human countenance
With a color of romance,	25
And, infusing subtle heats,
Turns the sod to violets,
Thou, in sunny solitudes,
Rover of the underwoods,
The green silence dost displace	30
With thy mellow, breezy bass.
Hot midsummer's petted crone,
Sweet to me thy drowsy tone
Tells of countless sunny hours,
Long days, and solid banks of flowers;	35
Of gulfs of sweetness without bound
In Indian wildernesses found;
Of Syrian peace, immortal leisure,
Firmest cheer, and bird-like pleasure.
Aught unsavory or unclean	40
Hath my insect never seen;
But violets and bilberry bells,
Maple-sap, and daffodels,
Grass with green flag half-mast high,
Succory to match the sky,	45
Columbine with horn of honey,
Scented fern, and agrimony,
Clover, catchfly, adder's-tongue
And brier-roses, dwelt among;
All beside was unknown waste,	50
All was picture as he passed.
Wiser far than human seer,
Yellow-breeched philosopher!
Seeing only what is fair,
Sipping only what is sweet,	55
Thou dost mock at fate and care,
Leave the chaff, and take the wheat.
When the fierce northwestern blast
Cools sea and land so far and fast,
Thou already slumberest deep;	60
Woe and want thou canst outsleep;
Want and woe, which torture us,
Thy sleep makes ridiculous.