Every once in a while I manage to get something right.

The proof? My pair of ‘Sunshine Blue’ caryopteris, which were which full of happy bees one morning this week. I had  purchased these shrubs to have something besides the same old, same old to look forward to in September. A shrub with a series of lavender-blue flowers opening along foot-long stems should do the trick, I figured. And it has.



Three years after purchase, the plants are really coming into their own. I immediately loved them for their bright yellow leaves are so useful in drawing attention to the flower border in front of my house. Every border needs some yellow leaves here and there. But it has taken a while for the flowers to have much of an impact. In years past they were sort of small and wimpy looking. This year they are large and colorful enough to make an impact. While they’re not the royal blue I saw in the plant breeder’s catalog, they’re nice. Deep lavender puff balls is how I would describe them.

And the bees love them.

For several years now, we’ve been hearing about the sudden disappearance of honeybees both here and in Europe. Called colony collapse disorder, the phenomenon is a source of great concern since plants that don’t get pollinated don’t produce food. Just to hear a TV news report and you start envisioning the end of life on the planet.  And since nobody knew the cause of the problem, nothing could be done to fix it.

But now scientists think they have figured it out. According to an article this week in the Science section of the October 6 New York Times, the cause seems to be a combination of a fungus and a virus working in consort. As the article states:

“A fungus tag-teaming with a virus have apparently interacted to cause the problem, according to a paper by Army scientists in Maryland and bee experts in Montana in the online science journal PLoS One.

Exactly how that combination kills bees remains uncertain, the scientists said—a subject for the next round of research. But there are solid clues: both the virus and the fungus proliferate in cool, damp weather, and both do their dirty work in the bee gut, suggesting that insect nutrition is somehow compromised.”

To read the full article here.

—Carolyn Ulrich

Photo Courtesy of Wayside Gardens