Lack of pollinators and weird weather

[Ellesbells]

I know there has been a lot of talk about the fact we seem to be missing a lot of bees and insects this year - and that the spring was very quiet because of it.

Has anyone else seen the effects of this?

My broad beans have been decimated with very few pods setting as they were got to first by bumblebees (which I love and don't begrudge them at all) who have drilled holes and sucked out the nectar without pollinating them, but my runner beans are also looking pretty bad! Despite huge numbers of flowers, most of them are falling off without being pollinated and as yet I can only see about 3 beans.

It's all very odd! And compared to the photos of my harvests last year, everything seems well behind - apart from my tomatoes, which last year took a battering in the heatwave with lack of pollinators, this year, I over sowed, growing more plants just in case, and blow me, if every single flower is now a fruit. I suspect I will be trying to find many different recipes for tomatoes!

It would be interesting to hear what everyone else is experiencing!

[Plot70]

It has been an odd year.
There is a maple tree at the north boundary of my plot and it had a heavy aphid infestation followed by swarms of ladybirds.
There were plenty of bees early on but now there is far less of them.
My beans are setting.

[annie8]

Generally the weather conditions seem to have made very everything a little behind this year . I was also worried a few months agothat there seemed less bees this year, particularly in my front garden which is planted to attract them. It seems to be ok now though and have seen plenty recently. I’m not sure about pollination rates yet will be keeping an eye on things like my squash and courgette. Good number of bees on my rasps as always. I have had a few unusual infestations this year - black aphids on my rhubarb for example which is a new one in my garden. Things generally ok though and hasn’t been as crazy warm as last year thankfully.

[Penellype]

The cold weather (about 1 degree below average) that we had in the first week of June (which incredibly was still the warmest June UK wide on record!) did not help plants at all and everything is a little behind as a result. The sudden switch to prolonged heat combined with little or no rain in some parts won't have helped either. I haven't particularly noticed an absence of insects on the whole, in fact I commented the other day that there have been more insects splatted on my car windscreen this year than I have seen for many years. I haven't noticed an absence of bees - there are more around this year than last, and in fact there was an article I read recently highlighting a problem with swarms of bees appearing in strange places due to them doing well in the heat. What I have noticed is an absence of butterflies - there seem to have been very few around here. I agree about aphids and ladybirds - they seem to be everywhere and my Japanese maple was encrusted with them shortly after the leaves opened, then they seemed to vanish over night.

Remember that bees are not the only pollinators, although they are very important ones. Many other insects including wasps do a good job too.

If you are having problems with runner beans not setting it is worth considering growing one of the runner-french bean crosses such as Firestorm (red flowers) or Moonlight (white). These are self pollinating and therefore set beans much better than traditional runners in adverse conditions. You can also get courgette varieties which are parthenocarpic (do not need pollinating), similar to the all female varieties of cucumber from the same plant family. I grow Sure Thing which is a nice courgette and very productive, and in the past I have grown Goldmine (yellow) which I stopped growing because it made a huge plant and produced far too many fruit for me to deal with.

[burnie]

We have a garden full of Bees, my wife has identified over 20 species as well as hoverflies and bee flies, no pollination problems that I've noticed, Broad beans are just filling the pods now, picked Black Currents and the Peas are looking good too.

[Jungle Jane]

One strange thing I noticed so far,I had two seven spot ladybirds on my dahlias yesterday & no aphids,I couldn’t believe there’s no aphids on them. I’ve got aphids with wings on my runner bean plants,maybe they haven’t spotted them yet,there’s plenty of ants about to farm them. There’s always bees in the garden & the hoverflies like the carrot flowers,bees like them too. There’s a cabbage white in the garden every day,I remember seeing a red admiral earlier in the spring & a little blue butterfly. They must’ve laid eggs & the young butterflies will be about soon,look for holes in nettle leaves as a food source.

[Nicos]

ellesbelles - nice thread!

[mrsbusy]

Hi. On my allotment yesterday there seemed to be an explosion of ladybirds. On my front garden I grew Phacelia and I have never seen so many bumble bees over the last 6 weeks. We had to cut it down the other day because it was about to start dropping seed but it was spectacular. We composted it (rather than digging in) because it was in the rose bed - which was completely swamped by the Phacelia. My bees died out earlier this year and many beekeepers have reported dead outs too so maybe wild colonies struggled too - and we are putting this down to the cold/wet/cold weather.

[RaptorUK]

The dry weather doesn't help the nectar flow, we need more rain ! !

I also planted Phacelia, primarily for my Bees, but they didn't seem to go on it, maybe it was too close, but it was always covered in Bumble bees. It's going to seed now too so it will end up in my newly built compost system/bins, I have one 60% filled so far and it's up at 65C so working very well.

My Bees came through the winter too well with stores to spare so swarmed in late April, then again a couple of weeks later. I combined a donated Nuc with them and they are doing OK now.

[mrsbusy]

Yes both my hives left 2 full boxes of honey so they had the stores alplenty to get through the winter.

[mothhawk]

Ditto my 2 hives of bees Mrs B. Beginning of June, thriving and full boxes of honey, end of June, nothing but robber bees. I managed to save 1 box of honey. I think they swarmed themselves out of existence, I had many swarm cells at the end of May, dealt with those, but sadly I wasn't able to visit them often enough to prevent them swarming again. I put it down to such hot weather and abundance of forage - they knew they could split and split again....

[mrsbusy]

Sorry to hear you lost your bees mothhawk. It is survival of the fittest - a strong colony should be able to fend off robber bees unless they are very docile and don't have the fight instinct - guess yours went for the flight option.
But if they swarmed away they are hopefully thriving somewhere.

[mothhawk]

I had been undecided whether to give up beekeeping as I was beginning to find it heavy work (lifting full supers and extracting honey etc), plus I don't have so much time to check them now, plus the apiary is not always easily accessible, so this has made up my mind for me. I won't be getting any more bees now.

[Nicos]

Aww…that’s a shame MH …(that’s a sympathy ‘like’ by the way)
My daughter said her latest super was so heavy that she too struggled to lift it out…and she’s a fit young farmer, so don’t feel too bad about struggling.
Sounds like the bees themselves helped you decide.