That Smell from the Backyard

If you have ever taken a family vacation in a vehicle, you know what I'm talking about when I mention "the smell from the backseat."  No, today we're talking about the smell from the backyard and it is the antithesis of the smell from the backseat. This is the time when all the citrus trees are blooming and the fragrance is heavenly.  Seriously.  Our backyard (where most of our citrus trees are planted) smells like heaven must smell.  In fact, In This Previous Post I listed orange blossoms as one of my favorites.

Those creamy white flowers open and the cool Spring breeze picks the scent up and carries it around and it wafts into your nose where your olfactory receptors translates the scent to your brain as a GOOD thing.  We have navel orange trees, tangerine trees, and satsuma trees.  This Spring we aim to get a grapefruit tree, a lemon tree and a lime tree to add to our home orchard.  I've been told that lemon blossoms smell the best, but honestly, I can't tell them apart.  They all just smell good.  I took a few pictures on Saturday morning of the trees in full bloom.

The dew was heavy this morning.  In this shot you can see a baby navel orange right in the center of the photo.  Of course not every fruit will set.  Over the course of the Spring and Summer, the plant will drop off the fruit that it can't sustain.  We'll also lose some over the year to birds and wind, but we've been pleased with the production from our trees and we've consumed gallons of fresh squeezed orange and tangerine juice and have made a fantastic Orange-Olive Oil Cake (I know that sounds strange, but it is delicious).  We've also made orange curd which goes great on biscuits or pancakes.

A baby navel orange

Just look at the amount of blooms on this tree - one on top of the other!

Hearkening back to botany class in college or biology class in high school (or the "Reproduction Song" from Grease 2), you can see all the parts of the flower. Remember the stamen, the pistil, the anther and filament?

The aroma of a flower is great for humans to enjoy, but their primary purpose is to attract pollinators like bees.  It's sort of like when you get home from work and you open the door and the smell of gumbo or roast or fresh bread or any number of great dishes draws you to the kitchen.  Well, that's exactly what the flower is doing. It's attracting bees, butterflies, beetles, etc. to help pollinate.  The nectar and pollen rewards the bees for doing the job of transferring pollen, so that reproduction takes place.  

Once the flower has been pollinated, it emits less fragrance so that the pollinators can be directed to those flowers that haven't been pollinated yet.

While I was standing by the trees, bees were buzzing back and forth, getting their work done.  No doubt these are the bees that live in our column.  Not long after these flowers fade, the bees will have plenty of flowers in the garden to keep them busy, especially the big yellow squash blossoms.  They tend to like those.

A Busy Bee

A beekeeper friend of mine always likes to remind me that when you see honey advertised as "Organic Honey," it is a gimmick.  Or if you see a sign that says, "Orange Blossom Honey" or "Pure Clover Honey," is is misleading.  When I asked him why, he told me that bees travel for miles - (1- 6 miles!) to find a nectar source. It is for that reason that it is next to impossible for the honey to be guaranteed to be organic or guaranteed to be honey from only one type of flower.  The beekeeper can't control where his or her bees go.  Interesting.  I had never thought about that. As the bee in the photo above was working hard, it reminded me that I needed to get to work.

Orange Blossom Time!

I've often said that if Heaven has a fragrance, I think it will be that of Orange Blossoms.  Right now all of our orange trees are absolutely filled with the white blooms and they fill the air with the sweet aroma.  Especially at night, when you walk outdoors, the air is heavy with the sweet scent.

Navel Orange tree filled with blooms

Here is a close-up photo of one of the blooms accompanied by a lady bug.  Even bugs can't resist the aroma!

Ladybugs like orange blossoms

But there is another creature that loves the orange blossoms, too - The Honey Bee! The tree was buzzing with activity as bees went from one flower to the next doing their thing.    Look at the photo below and you can spot the bee in flight at about the 12 o'clock postion in the picture.  He is flying away, so you're looking at his rear end. He's high-tailing it to one of hundreds of flowers he'll visit today.

The Flight of the Bumblebee

In this one the bee has landed on the flower and is making his way to the flower to get the nectar.  The bee will drink all the nectar he can and will pick up pollen while he's at it and will carry it to pollinate other flowers.

Bee on the flower

And in this picture, the honeybee is guzzling orange blossom nectar as fast as he can drink it.

Honeybee drinking nectar

So where is the bee going when he's done?  Well, he's flying back to his colony, which just happens to be inside the hollow column at our side entrance.  The bees have been living there for about 3 years now.  I'm sure there is lots of honey in there, but it is a fiberglass column and I don't know how to rob the honey out of it.  Can you see them all buzzing around the top of the column?

Bees a buzzing outside our side door

Tricia keeps telling me we need to do something about it because it's not very hospitable to have swarming bees right outside the door into which most of our guests enter our home.  But we've had no problems with salespeople or solicitors since the bees have moved in!  Most of the time the bees really don't bother you - you just have to ignore them  Sometimes though, when they are swarming, you don't want to be nearby as the air will be thick with swarming bees.  Maybe one day, I'll get my bee keeping friend to help me jack up the roof, turn the column on is side and rob the honey.