We went for a walk in the Railyard Park - after stocking up on salad greens and carrots and apricots and plums at the Farmers Market this morning - and came upon this Beehouse for Native Bees - a relative of the Insect Palace in London's Russell Square, and of the similar structure in the woods at Petworth, and doubtless lots of others that I don't know about (a quick Google reveals lots and lots - including a Bugingham Palace in Liverpool ...). And there's a truly informative panel on the back, from which I learned all kinds of things. These bees are super-valuable as pollinators, of course. But they aren't honey bees - that is, they don't make honey at all; they are non-hierarchical, in that they don't have queens/workers/drones (so much for Victorian analogies of the hive, since they don't live in hives) - and so on.
Admittedly, the only creature who appeared to be in residence was a lizard (do they eat bee eggs?), but there were certainly lots of bees doing their work around the flowers.
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