Thanks -- no hijack at all. I'm interested in any background that can help me understand the context. Our soil is very well drained, almost no clay. It's volcanic sand and gravel, with plenty of windblown alkali dust. That makes it hard to imagine that it would be likely to drown with a drip system. We have drip lines around most of our other fruit trees, and they seem to be doing fine. I was stomping around under the tree today, and I did push into some soft ground that was indicative of gopher burrows. Which leads me to return to my first final question: "Is it too late?"

I was in a car with a friend when a bee (or wasp, I never actually saw it) flew in the window, up the leg of his (baggy) shorts and stung him in those tender man-parts....but guess who was shrieking and hyperventilating by the side of the road? And even when his knackers swelled to grapefruit size, I was still making far more fuss. Still, it is quite true - help is possible (although I tell ya, the therapy lark was a dismal fail for me)......gardening though...... Out of the blue, my daughter (the same bee-stung one - she still loves me) cleared up our naked, muddy puppy ridden yard one day (we had many lurchers) and, in celebration we planted a lavatera. Obviously, as all gardeners know and I had yet to find out, lavatera grows like the clappers....but still, I thought I was a tremendous success (although was, at that point, less amused with the delighted bees)....and obviously had green fingers. Next plant - a japanese anemone - again, by sheer luck (I liked the name) I picked another winner....and an obsession was born. A totally overwhelming desitre to get to know plants (I enrolled for horticulture college quicksmart - 4 years!). Now seeing bees going about their business, on our plants (where they vastly prefer to hang out rather than on our arms and legs), over the last decade, has undeniably got a whole lot easier (although I am, of course, watching at a respectable distance and making sure I have a clear exit).........and as an avid fruit grower, I certainly have a vested interest in their continued health and survival - see what I mean about cancelling each other out....because whilst I fear these creatures, I also admire and depend on them so could not countenance spraying (although I have not the slightest compunction about spraying nettles out of all existence with some lethal broadleaf killer agent orange napalm death........) So while I never expect to get up close and personal to a bee, the sheer number of times I encounter them really does diminish that visceral anxiety because a lot of the time, I am tortured by anticipation and imagination.....actually being near but feeling safe has been the best therapy I have ever done.....so first of all, get involved in the garden.....might be what you need to break the cycle (yeah, I know all that facing one's fear blah blah......but it works if the rewards (a really great hobby and being able to be outside in the garden) are enough to make the effort.

Donnann, your Bee Balm garden sounds like heaven! and I am so sorry that naughty Woodchuck literally cleaned up his plate with your garden...I am sending much warm wishes for your Bee balm garden's speedy recovery...Yes, definitely get wire fencing for it. I would have loved to have seen your Bee Balm Garden.I am keeping my fingers crossed that Mr. Woodchuck will chomp on only the wild weeds instead, like crabgrass or nutsedge or those invasive tree shrubs! I recently saw Kristenflower's absolutely gorgeous rose/lavender heaven too at the gallery and was so impressed! Yours and hers are ideal bee gardens just like Celestialrose. I need to grow much more bee balm because I found out that my dwarf bee balm is not as "invasive" as I had hoped, LOL, no thanks to my crappy soil. I actually planted my bee balm away from my roses in a bare 3 by 3 area. My bee-attracting plants are too young, too few to really attract many bees so next time I have to amp the collection and not! deadhead my beebalm, hoping the seeds will scatter My dad on the other hand has 3 crabapple trees, a persimmon tree, a dwarf apple tree, his yard is completely overrun with wild honeysuckle bushes, lilacs, a forest of hollyhocks and sweet peas(which the bumblebees used to love before they died, one flowering redbud tree, winterberry, azaleas, gardenias, jasmine, 3 crazy rosebushes that are like 8' tall because he never prunes them, 1 rootstock Dr. Huey, all these bee and bird attracting plants which I am so jealous about...But! he does not have bee balm... I think he can certainly add this to his collection...Donna, LOL! I think you will be "enabling" him; the neighbors already think he's got enough of a jungle...Also genes run in the family, hahahaha! I tried to keep as tidy of a garden as I could, but my garden still looks like a jungle because I planted like 50! overly tall gladiolus and now I want to grab some of my Dads overly tall hollyhocks as well! Anyway, I cant wait to see your bee balm garden recover and flourish once again. Hugs! Greenhaven alas I have just a handful of those native beesbut am grateful that at least I have those few. Your post reminded me, do you remember that "I am so excited thread" I wrote? The wonderful cute Mr. Bumblebee that used to visit my garden in May did not survive it seemsIn Mid-June it disappeared after my next door neighbor hired a professional pesticide company to spray the foundations of their home. Perhaps it too was Sevin? It was not until an entire month and a half passed that my Dads bees disappeared... (he and I live in completely separate neighborhoods and bees only have that 3 mi. radius anyways) So as you can see I feel why I feel so guilty. Perhaps if I had mentioned this to my Dad, who knows something could have been prevented? Again, you may be right in that the wild bees are hardier in comparison. They have shorter life spans and dont have communal hives, and that is why they have survived You see if you do the research and look up native bees youll discover thisThey dont have the hives and therefore, they dont have the communal death that the honeybees experience when they are exposed to Sevin. Because wild bees have so many tiny individual nests, each is independent of each other ... Not so with honeybees. Once their hive is contaminated, their entire hive is destroyed, thousands are gone. But to be honest I will always love the honeybee and bumblebees more... There's just something so special about their fuzziness that I love!

I have this one for several years now, I think it's called Oriole feeder, perhaps some other feeders have bee guard too? This one is plastic, it works good when after the sugar water is filled, then screw on the bottom upside down, then turn over in one swoop / fast motion, then hang up but on a very short line so it can not sway in wind, otherwise the syrup level below get's too high and almost runs out the hole, that's when bees get interested. Konrad