It’s a good year for flowers on the citrus trees I grow in pots on my patio in West London, maybe the best since the lockdown year, 2020. The lemon harvest looks promising, especially now seeing the pretty flowers being grazed and pollinated by Red Mason Bees (Osmia bicornis), attracted by the scent. It’s a while since I introduced a colony of bees to my garden and although they no longer use the nest I provided, I’m very happy to see that their descendants have reappeared this year after hibernation. Red Mason Bees do not have a sting and are not only harmless but very welcome: I specifically don’t use weed-killers or insecticides in my garden so as not to endanger them.
Photography in my patio garden with a manual lens used by my Father for his research zoology work, a Micro-Nikkor 55mm f3.5.
