I live in Rockland County New york and this year I have noticed that bees (all varieties) are non-existent.My garden is a butterfly and bee paradise and yet this year if I see a few a day I'm lucky .Traveled to several local nurseries and they reported same phenomenon.I was aware of Colony Collapse Disorder,but this is frightening.Plants that should have dozens of insects foraging on them are vacant.At one nursery I counted just two bees among the hundreds of blossoms that are traditional bee magnets.Any similar happenings in your areas?
Bees have vanished!
not here... we are buzzness as usual.... did they do some kind of massive pest control up there?
I'm in Dutchess County and we have bees. My crabapple tree is covered in fruit and when it was in bloom at the end of April, you could hear the bees buzzing from 6-8 feet away. Lots of wasps around, too, but do we want to count them?
No pest control I'm aware of.I did have bees around earlier in spring.It's very real and local fields are also vacant.Might just be localized but that covers quite an area.
Tons of them in my garden.
Is it an urban myth that the cell phone has contributed to the bee loss?
Yes.
I've heard of the bee decline also, flower gardens are relatively insignificant when compared to their importance in food production.
Since reading this I noticed not as many Honey Bees at the flowers but lotsa Bumble bees on the Spirea.
I had heard there was a virus.
Poor Honey manyfacturers, it's near impossible to make a synthetic honey.
You gotta have the real thing.
We have tons of bees here.
I saw a special on the honey bee and they said that virus was caused by the created bee hives/crowded conditions at (what do you call them?) bee farms.
That was discussed last year, but later dropped as a possibility. Virus is the number one theory.
Here in Western NY we have lots of bees, from teeny tiny ones smaller than flies to big bumble bees. Probably not as many honey bees as in years passed, but I have mixed feelings about them.
Honey bees were brought in from European settlers from Africa. HBs are general pollinators, meaning they'll collect anything, and as you might imagine, collecting enough of anything to create honey is probably no easy task. Now some native bees are general pollinators, but some, along with certain butterflies and other pollinators, are selective pollinators, meaning they can only survive on pollen from certain plants. Since HBs need such large quantities to produce honey, they collect every bit of pollen they can get, leaving little or none for the other native pollinators, many of whom have become endangered or extinct due to HBs, loss of the plants they need and habitat loss in general.
I used to get really upset thinking about the problem of hive collapse, but now I'm feeling that ecologically, they had it coming. I love honey, and am fascinated by HBs ability to produce it (my grandfather kept bees and I considered it years back) but balance has been thrown off, probably irreversibly. Still, I'm really enjoying watching the native non-HB bees and other pollinators in my garden this year, and have a new-found appreciation for them.
Virus identified is IAPV(Israeli acute paralysis virus) and it has been shown to also infect wild bee species.Not sure if this is cause of my local denuding of bee population.Observed a bumble bee that demonstrated this syndrome.It was sitting on log and wings were spasmodically attempting to flap.Eventually, the bee just dropped to the ground after struggling for two hours.I have continued to scout surrounding zones and observed a paucity of pollinating insects,it is real here.As I previously mentioned last several years my garden was rife with pollinating insects,this afternoon I counted five bees over period of an hour.Garden is eerily still, like an artifical flower display,it is quite scary.I do believe wild populations are more adaptable and the immune members will go on to repopulate the zone.Virus seems to have been imported through imported Australian bee stocks.Australian bees seem to be fine,but it is devastating U.S. populations.A flower garden without bees is like a sunny day spent indoors.......not nearly as much fun.
Reporting from Long Island, lots of bees and wasps around! Clemen
MASON BEES
Mason bees are little gentle insects you rarely see and hardly ever find where they live.
That being said they are even better polinators than the honey bee. Their active life cycle is that they come out of hiding, mate, polinate, store food and use mud to cap both ends of their eggs and resultant larva and insect that will appear at the perfect time the following year. Except for a relatively short period of time they spend the rest of the year in the little hive they create using mud..........thus their names Mason Bees. Any shake shingled house is likely allready their home. They like to build their homes in a slot or tube slightly larger than a soda straw.
Their sexual behavior is intresting. When a female emerges she falls to the ground and is immediately serviced by a male. Then she goes about the job of gathering food while polinating allmost any flower or blooming plant. This she takes back to a new open slot or tube and proceeds to lay eggs, place food and mud it in the amount the next years larva need to develop into bees. A coffee can full of the proper sized tubes and tube liners will enable her to place thousands of eggs and food. Her work being done and when food runs out she dies. There is no queen. All females in an area work in the same housing slots or available tubes. What do the males do. Don't know but their first task must not be to bad. They just hang around untill the little ladies hit the ground. I guess they have sex and be about the job of eating to survive and possibly bragging with each other as to how busy they were the past morning.
There are several sites devoted to their development and promotion. Give our friend Google a chance to introduce you to them. Use two words....Mason Bee A family owned firm in Washington or Oregon developed the business with supplies to support bee keepers and the need for the small hive parts. They also ship start up bees in the tubes you will find in their hives.
Unlike honey bees Mason Bees are very gentle. Very rarely sting. It takes good eyes and patience to even see them. My hive is right beside my back door facing East to catch the AM sun.
Very interesting, Dwaine - thanks. Team them with the carpenter ants and lightning bugs and you've covered all the trades!
Docgipe, nice reading about those bees, so interesting, thanks for sharing! Clemen
MASON BEES
This is a pix of my hive. You are looking at the sealed ends of the tubes which hold the eggs that will hatch next spring. A coffee can is about the same size as this object that is holding the tubes. You do nothing but add new tubes for next years females.
Where's the honey? The only honey they make is the female mentioned in the above post.
I made one of these years ago,used bamboo.
Very neat!
I seem to have a good amount of bees, as usual. I know they love the blossoms on my Anise Hyssop, and they're also all over the Catnip, which is now in bloom. I've followed the concerns about the demise of honey bees due to a virus, and hope this is just a cyclical thing.
I think a garden would be a lonely place without the bees.
Rose
Our beekeepers have been losing bees big time for more than a few years. It does not appear to be something that is going to go away. Little is known about the causes. There may be even less know about the disease. The beekeepers I know say the most likely persons to solve this delema do not know where to turn at this hour. They do know that a new swarm will usually be a lot stronger in their new hive than the hive they left will be. There is a lot of professional study and guessing going on in the industry. No cure is in sight but like Ben Franklins tungston discovery they know a lot of things that do not work. That is the only major progress to date.
Those dependent on polinators better be looking to the Mason Bees. They are easy to keep, reportedly better polinizers than the honey bee. They are already native in many areas but can be increased in number by simply offering them clean new housing each year. They to date show no signs of losing numbers for any reason. Sorry they do not make honey.
I have bees, many many bees! Like you Rose, my Hyssop is just starting to open and the bees will be there in droves. No honey bees though. It has been two years since I have seen a honey bee. This is a sad state of affairs. The bumbblers do a great job of pollinating, but produce no honey. It makes me sad and VERY scared that there are no honey bees. We're at the top of the food chain, we need the bottom . Stupid as that sounds