You can search out info on orchard mason bees to learn ways to bring them into your garden to pollinate your plants. They are not susceptible to the colony collapse disorder that is taking out the honey bee. They are smaller than honey bees but do not make honey or beeswax, they are solitary so do not have a queen to protect so they only sting when squeezed or stepped on.
well thats where they are all going is it .....there has definitely been a shortage of them here as well as a shortage of butterflies and ladybirds. bit disconcerting as Einstein said that when the bee's disappear it will be the beginning of the end.......sorry to end on that thought. G
Before this quote makes others uncomfortable...there is no proof that Einstein ever said it. Any quote sounds so much more authentic and in this case creates more fear, if it can be attributed to a famous and intelligent person, but his biographers have never found any writings of his or transcripts of his lectures where he even mentions anything like that quote. So you make up something that fits your own agenda, but a famous name on it and it spreads around the world as fact.
when things fall out of the sky - can't be good... i would imagine pesticides cause large numbers of wasps and bees to just drop from the sky. and it's never a good thing... one year we had little bats falling dead out of the sky in the daytime or crashing into the house. this type of abnormal event can't be a good thing.
Heat kills bats too, especially if they are out during the day in the summer when they should be hold up in a dark cave somewhere....especially the smaller ones. Plus bats that are out during the day are far more likely to be rabid than the ones hanging in a dark place during the day, rabies could be their killer. My part of north Texas had an epidemic of dead birds falling out of trees a few years ago. So many died that the health departments finally told people to just throw the bodies in the trash instead of calling them to come pick them up. Turned out to be West Nile Virus from mosqitoes. Parasites and viruses also cause the death of bees and wasps in and out of the hive.
I have wasps a plenty and a mild amount of honey bees. Haven't seen any bumble bees. And don't want to either. The red wasps are bad enough!
I definitely have wasps around here! The other day I found a wad of dead bees floating on the surface of the pool water when the kids and I went out for a swim. I think they probably drowned trying to get a drink maybe?
Yes they will drown in birdbaths, ponds, pools. They are so small they need really shallow pans of water to get drinks from.
A few weeks ago I started noticing lots of lethargic bumblebees clinging to the large agastache in the middle of my garden. They are not recovering, something they usually do. At first I thought they were dying, as described in this thread. Something to do with nectar shortage and too many bees, happens periodically apparently. But this is different: there are hardly any dead ones lying about, and it doesn't just affect one species, but a number of them. Very alarming indeed. Has anyone come across anything like this this summer?
I was noticing a huge amount of bees in my garden yesterday. I thought it looked like a feeding frenzy ... they were mostly all over my Culvers Root blooms and Globe thistle. Very few wasps and butterfies this year, and very few Lady Bugs.
Forgot to mention: the number of honeybees & hoverflies this year is at an all time low. My thyme, campanula, cotoneaster & lavender are usually covered and buzzing with them, this year there are just lots of flies shock and the occasional disoriented bumblebee. Could the lack of hoverflies & honeybees be linked to the bumblebees behaving in such an odd manner? :?: Sjoerd, the tissue evaluation isn't such a crazy idea, but where does one find a scientist who has time , money & of course interest to research this phenomenon? I'm secretly hoping this is something that's just happening locally, and next year will bee buzzzzziness as usual
I dont know if Im actually seeing more bees this year, or just noticing them more, but there have definitely been a lot of honey bees and wood bees around my area this year.
My number of bees has gone up in the last couple of weeks with more flowers, bushes blooming. I tried to copy and paste an article from facebook but it didn't work. But basically it was saying and telling us that when you use the systemic bug killers that the poison goes to the blooms and when the bees go to pollinate, it is killing them. Maybe not right away but they could be traveling to your neighbors, etc. and dying. Bayer does not want to admit to the actuations, they sell a lot of systemic poisons...so do check over your items you use in the yard. You might not realize what you are doing and eventually the bees will be gone....I have clover growing in my grass and if I was to spray the clover to get rid of it, I would be killing a lot of bees. If you have to use a chemical , do it when plants are not blooming or cut the blooms off first so you do not attract insects. But try to stay away from systemic items...if you treat a plant with systemic they advise you not to bring them indoors. They have a reason, it could poison your cat or dog or youngster if it blooms and they put it in their mouth. or just handling the plant and putting their hands or paws in their mouths. I hope I worded this right..
