Bee woes (or lack thereof)

I always have a ton of wild bees of many species, and with our mild winter I would have thought they did well. When spring arrived and it was such a big year for forage, I just assumed they were cruising greener pastures. But summer is here and I still only have a few bees of any kind. Just a few honey bees, carpenter bees and bumble bees visiting the clover in the yard and some of the herbs. I do have a lot of little tiny wasps.

With the squash blooming, those big yellow blooms should be their regular mosh pit of bumble bees trying to get inside. Instead... no buzzing in the garden and my insect pollinated crops are not setting fruit like they should. The ants are getting a few started, at least. I've taken to manually shaking the tomatoes since the bees are visiting them. None of the regular bumble bee holes are active either.

It's was a rough winter for domesticated bees although this area has been mostly spared the CCD and other problems.

Am I the only one seeing a big lack of wild bees?

This message was edited Jun 21, 2013 3:34 PM

From what I've heard, it's a national concern...

My Bee Balm is finally blooming and I saw my first Bumble Bee on it yesterday, it should be covered with bees but they are not there. I do see a lot of very tiny bees of some sort on my Purple Cone flowers.

the bumble bees are just starting to show up around here, the sweat bees have been out in force around my potted plants, lol, did see a wasp today, and honey bees were swarming over the blooming ornamental grass in early spring, but have since all flown the coop. From what i hear, its the materials in some of the big corporate pesticides, originally intended for crop damaging insects, that are also killing the honey bees off. Even your local store available sevin dust has a warning on the back to keep it OFF of blooming plants for that reason, although not many folks around here seem to heed that warning--its the first thing they seem to reach for when they see something munching on their plants. :

I keep four hives of domestic bees, and lost two hives this winter. At my bee club (the largest in the US with 250+ members), easily 3/4 of the members lost hives this winter. We have had a real lack around here.

That said, we are finally starting to see bumble bees, etc. Happily, all four of my hives are thriving this year -- better than other years actually!

Let's hope it's a fluke!

Our area must be the exception because I have tons of wild bees visiting my plants and trees. I also have 2 hives and they are busy but are not getting their nectar and pollen from my gardens, I only see the bumblebees and mason bees.

Of course, in the past 6 years no one in the area has planted tobacco, so no neonicotinoid pesticides have been used. But this year I see quite a few acres being planted with tobacco so next year may be a different story. I have to keep things blooming here so the bees stay close to home here!

All insect numbers seem to be down here - not just bees. Possibly due to the weather: late short spring followed by very dry summer. We didn't have our annual Miller Moth invasion. No Swallowtail caterpillars on the dill. No pear/cherry slugs (sawfly larva, not a molusk) on the pears and cherries (this is a good thing). A few adult and larva lady bugs - but there isn't much for them to eat. I have some flea beetles, but not nearly as many as usual and the numbers are dropping. We had June Bug larva, which is what all the birds were eating, but no june bugs so far. Some of the Bumble favorites are just starting to bloom - I'll make a point of watching them closer.

Some bug numbers have been up, here: fireflies and ants in particular.

I haven't kept bees (although I've thought about it) because the local bee numbers were so high and I didn't want to displace any wild colonies. Maybe I should?

I've seen a lot of bees and other bugs, but they were late much later then normal. Then when they found my squash they would get stuck in the closed squash flowers. Argh...I'd hear them buzzing around but they couldn't get out. I did open the flower so the could get out....

NicoleC -
I would make sure you have good bee plants for native and honey bees to support the ones you already have. You can drill holes in posts or logs for solitary bees. Mason bees like 5/16" & 4" deep, but you might want to try various sizes for other bees. Bundles of Bamboo stems are supposed to work, too. Then look into bee-keeping and see if it is something you might be interested in.
I decided it seemed like too much work when my bee numbers seem okay. Not only do I have native bees, but I have enough honey bees that I suspect there is a hive in someone's attic in the neighborhood.

During our walks along the greenway, we see lots of bumble bees working the milkweed blossoms. Although there is plenty of white Dutch clover in many local yards, there are very few honeybees.

One of the reasons for colony collapse is caused by the varroa mite. Anyone thinking of having a beehive on their property should be aware that their hives must be registered with the state. This is for the bees protection. The bee inspector will inspect your hives once a year and give advise about the spread of honeybee diseases. The ones I've met were pleasant, helpful individuals.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varroa_destructor

I've seen plenty of bees, but then I also have a neighbor with a wild hive in their hollow maple tree. They love to get a drink from the water around my plants, and from my little pond. Can really tell the difference with the amount of fruit my pagoda dogwood has been setting the past couple of years.

pollengarden, I grow bee forage plants and am always looking to add more, and I keep water out for the birds and insects. My land also backs up to many acres of wild land, which is probably why have so many species of native bees. Our neighborhood has well established landscaping and very little chemical use -- no lawn services or similar.

In the past, I have been fairly certain a lot of my honeybees were from someone's hive -- just way too docile and too large. Perhaps that person lost a hive or more this winter. However, all the bee species are very low this year, so it's not a honeybee problem exclusively.

We have some property in the Mountains. We had a large tree 20 feet from the front porch, and the porch is where we spend a lot of time. There was a wind storm that snapped the tree off about 15 feet up. It turned out the tree was hollow and had a big honeybee hive inside. We never noticed or suspected - so it is possible to have a hive nearby and not know.
The wind storm was in November. As near as we can tell, the hive was unable to move and did not survive.

pollengarde - shame this happened in the Winter. Any other time of the year the bees would have been able to move to new quarters. They cannot fly during cold weather. :(

Last year late in the year , swarms of honeybees on the willow aster , mostly only a few cruising and browsing the lawn clover this year.
Good though because I have seen entire seasons where there had been so few I did not see any at all , not a one ,,that's odd ..
Lots of larger bumble bees around and the real tiny green guys ,,

With so few bees, I'm becoming more friendly with wasps. I've seen a few bees, mostly the tiny ones. And I live just south of what used to be a honey farm. Sad.

This year I've been noticing a lot of bees in our garden. DH put up a mason bee house and that's being used, but I think mostly what I'm seeing are bumble bees. They love our lavender and purple salvia. We have lots of flowers throughout the vegetable garden and that seems to be attracting them. A couple of years ago we saw almost none when it was time for the peaches and other fruit trees to be pollinated, which is why DH started looking into mason bees.

I heard the love buzz of bumblebees in the garden this morning, finally!. My melons and squash and cukes have been putting on a huge show and I guess it finally caught the eye of the local bumbles.

I should be hip deep in bees in the garden in the morning... but I'll take what I can get.

The sunflowers will be opening soon and that always seems to call them for miles around.

Only the queen bumble bee over winters. She has to build a colony by herself in the spring - then the worker bees will help her with the brood (baby bees).

This is probably why you have not seen many bumble bees until now.

I saw a honey bee today while putting in (planting) plants in the rain ..The very minute it stopped raining poof!! , it was buzzing about the orange milkweed ..

The bumble bees have been on the tall milkweed ,That blooming odors like perfume you can smell for 25 or 30 yards ..
Mostly I have been seeing little green bees with airy little spiders ,, both are minute , like real tiny !
The big joke to this : it stopped raining just after I finished planting ... lol


This message was edited Jun 29, 2013 9:00 PM

I usually see them much earlier, but warm weather was awfully late coming on, so maybe that's it.

Every year the carpenter bees make early nests in my deck in the bar and then disappear... eaten by birds, I think. This year I found white larvae carpenter bees -- astonishingly large! -- fallen(?) out of one of the holes. It was quite sad since they were nearly full size. That didn't stop the robins from eating them before I came back with a broom.

Robins here are bouncing about in all the rain here eating "pallidis " snails ,, the little ones shells and all ...

To say thread stray about the robins .... the bumble bees use to nest in or deck also ,, until the flowers got the attention , now they eat from the flowers and look for other places to nest ,,

This message was edited Jun 29, 2013 9:06 PM