On a sunny summer's day the bees in this garden are so plentiful that the air hums like a generator. Across the lane a neighbour has a hive, and its inhabitants literally make a beeline for certain plants here. Right now their favourite is the poached-egg plant (Limnanthes douglasii), a sunny-faced, low-growing annual that self-seeds each year in sheets of splashy yellow.
Every blossom is visited again and again by bees gathering pollen and nectar to bring home to feed to the translucent, white larvae snugly encapsulated in hexagonal wax cells. As the workers go about their food-collecting chores, their busy little bodies become dusted with stray pollen grains. And as they move from bloom to bloom they unwittingly brush bits of it onto the stigma - the female part of the flower - consummating the fertilisation of their host and ensuring it will set seed and beget another generation. Without the pollinating bees, Limnanthes douglasii would become barren, and soon there would be no more poached eggs scattered about our gardens - or in the wild in their native north America.
Bees don't just help perpetuate pretty flowers in our gardens, they are also responsible for orchards full of fragrant fruits, punnets of luscious raspberries and strawberries, fields of oil-seed rape and bottles of linseed oil - to mention a few crops that depend on their work. (And a hive of honey-bees, numbering 50,000 members, makes 40 lbs of honey in a season.)
Modern farming methods and urbanisation have destroyed many of the natural habitats of wild bees, and some of our 88 species are now endangered. Consequently, we gardeners must work at making our territories a haven for these hard-working fellow earthlings.
Big-minded gardeners will even have a welcome for annoying individuals of the Megachile species, the leaf-cutting bee, which is an important pollinator. Loathed by rose-growers, this accomplished insect - slightly flatter and broader than the honey-bee - clips neat semicircular pieces from the edges of rose leaves. These she brings back to her nest - which could be in a hollow stem, an old flower-pot or in sandy soil - to fashion into minute cigars packed with nectar and pollen, food for the occupant of the single egg which she then lays in each leafroll.
Colm Ronayne, one of this country's bee experts is - understandably - just as keen on leafcutters as he is on other, more horticulturally-acceptable bees: "The more bees, the better," he says warmly. And then goes on to explain how to attract even more leafcutters and other solitary bees into your garden (cut up old raspberry canes into foot-long lengths, tie in a bundle and suspend them in a dry, sheltered place such as under the eaves of a shed or in a tree).
According to Colm, bumblebees like a garden "that is not too tidy" - which will be sweet music to many gardeners' ears. "Long grass, piles of old twigs and places like compost heaps may attract them to nest," he says.
The bumble-bee is the steady workhorse of the bee world, bumbling along from early spring to late autumn, staunchly gathering nectar and pollen. The honeybee, on the other hand, is a fairweather bee, preferring to work only in sunshine and out of the wind, during the warmer months of the year. And the queen honeybee, who conjoins with up to six males during her one or two nuptial flights, has an unnerving mating procedure. During copulation she paralyses the male; his genitals snap off - lock, stock and barrel, as it were - and off she flies to the next willing suitor in the queue (no wonder they're called drones).
If after that bit of nature-in-theraw you still want a bee-friendly garden, you should concentrate on providing a succession of beeplants throughout the year. In general, bees are attracted to blue, white, mauve and yellow flowers. Their vision operates in a different spectrum to ours: unlike us, they can see ultra-violet, but red (which jumps out at humans) appears as a dull grey to them - which is why bees shun red flowers (except those that reflect ultraviolet light).
The bee-conscious gardener grows a mixture of perennial flowers and soft fruits, preferably in a sheltered position. And water is essential: a pond or even a birdbath from where bees can drink, or bring water back to the hive to be fanned about as an air coolant.
And lay off the pesticides, some of them seriously damage populations of beneficial insects. There is nothing more lifeless than a dead quiet garden.
If you have observations about bees and bee-plants in your garden write to me, or email me at: powers@iol.ie
Diary date: The Co Wicklow Garden Festival continues until July 12th. This year - the ninth - there are nearly 40 gardens involved. Brochures available from Wicklow Co Tourism, St Manntan's House, Kilmantin Hill, Wicklow. Tel: 0404-66058. Email: wctr@iol.ie. Web site: www.wicklow.ie