Brown-belted Bumble Bee

I realized today that I hadn't yet posted pics of the four main species of bumble bees (Bombus) that I find in my garden each summer.  I posted my favorite the Perplexing Bumble bee HERE but still lacking the other three.  So today's feature is Bombus Griseocollis.  This is the predominant bee in my milkweed patch right now as well as on the echinacea.  It is a little hard to see the namesake brown belt on this one, but if you look closely you can see a darker band below the fuzzy yellow thorax.  You may just have to trust me on this one!

It was cooler and less humid today so I spent the whole morning pottering around outside with Jax.  He was mostly guarding me from squirrels although a vigorous game of "chase the hose" did break out resulting in a very happy, very wet dog.  He just loves to chase the stream of water from the hose even though he pretty much hates all other forms of water on his body.

After lunch, I was feeling tired (in fairness, I woke up tired) so I went upstairs and had a rather long nap.  Haven't done that in a while and I confess that it felt very good and somewhat decadent.  

I am going to move my little monarch caterpillars into a larger container.  Since I initially only brought one tiny cat in from the garden, I just put it in a small mesh container.  Now that I have 8 or 9 caterpillars all eating and growing I need to move them into something a bit larger so they have plenty of room.  

xoxo
Debbi