Rural Gardening: Question for bee experts: What is going on with these bees?, 1 by passiflora_pink

passiflora_pink wrote:
I have a butterfly bush that seems to be intoxicating to bees. Whenever I check the blossoms there are lethargic bees on the flowers...they appear drugged! One morning before dawn I picked some flowers from the shrub and brought them in and a bumblebee was "sleeping" on the blossoms so I took it outside and brushed it off. Since then I check every day and there are honeybees and bumblebees all motionless or moving slowly along the blossoms. I can pick the flowers and the bees just sit there. Here is a photo of 2 bumblebees but there is a honeybee on the other side. I have not used pesticides in my garden and no nearby shrubs seem to affect them the same way. I assume the bees recover because when I brush them off the plant they are soon gone.