Last fall, Nancy planted broccoli in several pots in her patio garden. We had a couple of crowns before winter hit, but not much. We planted a little too late. I then advised her not to pull up the plants but to wait until spring and see if they would produce then. They didn’t. They went to seed with beautiful pale yellow blossoms. About ten days ago, my wife headed for her garden to pull them up, but ran into a couple of honeybees enjoying the sweet nectar from the flowering broccoli plants. She left the plants alone and we’ve seen the bees again – always two.
Bees have such a hard time of it, we couldn’t bear to deprive them. Since our broccoli plants were the only things flowering at the time, I suppose that was what attracted the little fellows. Now, with the jonquils, the redbud, the forsythia and many other plants in bloom, we can pull up the broccoli without a guilt trip – but it was certainly a pleasure seeing those two bees at work on a chilly March afternoon.