When I went out to do my "count" for the Great Sunflower Project, I found this bee just sitting on the sunflower. I thought maybe he was dead from heat exhaustion as the temperature on Tuesday was 104 in the shade. And out in the backyard in the afternoon sun, well, it was a stunning experience. But, after awhile, the bee staggered and then perked up, flew away.

The count time is 15 minutes - watch your sunflowers and count the number of bees you see. Then report. I saw 4 wasps - they landed on the leaves and then looked like they were doing push-ups; didn't go to the blossom; 3 honey bees, and 1 bumble bee.

Here is a sunflower that is ready to bloom. Of the 18-20 seeds I planted in spring time, I have 6 strong plants and 3-4 smaller ones.

This type of sunflower produces a couple of blossoms on each stalk. They don't last long, and they don't appear to make seeds (but, I could be wrong about that). After they bloom, they sort of wither and droop.

Tuesday, the weather was horrendous - 104 in the shade. Wednesday, 100. It's been coming down a degree a day since then. Today it was 97. Night time getting down to 60s finally. I've been watering daily early morning 5-6 am, and late at night about 10 pm.