I was reading the post on bee dissappearances and noted no recent posts. I am curious about this topic. I live In Toledo Ohio and have been gardening for years. I have a lot of flowers and something is always in bloom till fall. Last year there were lots of honey bees, bumble bees and wasps swarming all over. This year there are very few. I don't use pesticides so that isn't it. Just recently I started seeing quite a few little bees. I think they are baby honey bees as they are half the size of the ones I am used to seeing. Any new thoughts on the bee situation?
i live in alabama we had to take down the hummers feeders they where being overrun with all kinds of bees ground bees yellowjackets and wasps we tried oil on the feeders. we moved them 4 times cant find the source. we need rain
I haven't seen any decline in the bee population in my yard, actually this year there were tons of bees. I was lucky enough to have a swarm in one of my spruce trees. Now that was cool! My kids loved it!
Wow ... those bees certanily liked your spruce tree grove. Bees routinely visit my Hedychium 'Tara' while they're flowering. The fragrance is primo in the later part of the evening and the bees are long gone home. Cheers, LPN.
That is a beautiful flower. I'm afraid the bees around my place have nothing quite so exotic to enjoy, thankfully they take what they can get!
MamaMac ... What do you believe to be the attractant in your spruce grove? I know the bees are after pollen on my ginger (Hedychium). edleigh ... there are many Hedychium (flowering ginger) that will grow quite nicely in the sub-tropics. We're more limited to the species that will grow on the Canadian Riviera. Cheers, LPN.
I am no entomologist, but I believe the bees were swarming. When the hive gets over-populated, the Queen produces a new Queen, half the workers gorge on honey and follow the new Queen when she leaves. She just happened to land on my spruce tree. The workers are attracted to her scent and just land on top of her. They stayed in the tree for three days. They send out scouts to find a good spot for a new hive. When one is found, they all take off at once. It is truly an amazing sight. As they have no food or young to protect, they are extremely docile so you can get really close. They almost came to their demise as my husband thought they were wasps and was going to spray them. Thankfully he told me before he did. I wonder how many other successful colonies have been destroyed by good intentioned people?
I live in Northeast Ohio and I have seen a large decline in honey bees this year. It wasn't until this month, that I was able to count 6 in my yard at once. I grow everything organically. Even though I have a large population of yellow jackets, bumbles and other bees, I have very few honey bees. I bought this rudbeckia, which the sales person called a "green eyed susan", and the bees and butterflies won't leave it alone. Look at the pictures, because this is what I see every day on it! The bees and butterflies have no problems sharing a flower. Does anyone know the name of this rudbeckia? The bees are also very attracted to my echinacea and agastache
I'll chime in from South America. There hasn't really been much of a decline in our bee populations in Ecuador, but I think a lot of that has to do with severely limited pesticide use in the country - the sentiment being that if you need to resort to chemicals you're doing something wrong. People here tend to put up nesting materials for the wandering solitaries (like the carpenter bees; I have a house for them on my balcony) and apiculture (beekeeping) is very popular among those of us who don't grow bananas. Perhaps it's the higher pesticide rates in North America that are taking their toll, along with the cyclic decline of the hymenoptera in general... Apparently there are fewer bees even in Ecuador this year, but because of the apiculturists and the lack of winter die-off, the decline isn't hurting crops.
We've been in a severe drought here in southern middle-Tennessee area. I have seen very few honeybees on flowers, but, this is the first time in my life that I can recall seeing them sitting around the edges of the water in my birdbaths. I usually see five or six at a time.
I know here in Australia it has been in drought for a good few years and there have been hardly any bees about, they are still there but not as nearly as many.
