Bees - Where are they?!

[Fluorescent green]

Hi

The Co-Op seem to be a good company!

http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.ph...u=JTCym&ref=nf

Plan BEE, quite a long film clip.

FG

[Two_Sheds]

Lots of bees on the coriander, chives and comfrey today ..

[coreopsis]

They were busy with the raspberries for the last couple of weeks.

[HayleyB]

They're all in my bladdy stable wall and won't leave at least I don't need to worry about pollinators.......

Apparently there were two other big swarms locally around the same time as our swarm - no lack of bees here

[janeyo]

I was at nanna's garden this morning and the overhanging honeysuckle from her neighbour was ful of big bees (bumble I think). Had a good look and no sign of any mites on them either.

[FB.]

We have foxgloves, lavender, chives, beans and many other bee-attractive flowers open at the moment, but only the occasional bee is around. If those flowers can't pull in the bees, then I conclude that there are probably virtually no bees!

[Rabidbun]

Not a huge number of bees here, but I did cut down one of the large flowering bushes at the front this year. Will be next year before the lavender replacing it gets to a decent size for the bees to gather again I think.

Mostly seen bumblebees, a few honey bees but curiously absolutely no wasps. Oh, and some masonry bees nesting in the bricks next to our front room window (could be fun when we can't open that in a heatwave! ) but again, not a huge number of them by the looks of things.

[Tam]

Fortunately we have plenty of bees again - all wild ones, but still no wasps, but their pest control duties are mostly being done by blue, coal and great tits feeding their young. We also have two wren nests in the garden, so I suppose they are dong their bit as well.

[Madasafish]

We have approx. 15 metres of borders with wild geraniums. These are all in flower (blue) and the bees - which were few in number before- have as usual swarmed in their hundreds: wild bees, honey bees and bumble bees. Ditto with our rasps. And when our buddleia come out, even more bees.


We've seen yellow bottomed bees, copper bottomed ones and white bottomed ones.


Only 1 wasp so far but we see a lot around in August/September with ripe fruit...

[purplekat]

I work in a garden centre and this week we've suddenly got loads of bumble bees and a few of what I think are honey bees. Hardly any before that though.

My garden seems to have finally got a few this week too (might be something to do with the geraniums and oriental poppies finally coming into flower)

[vikkib]

We're really lucky as we've got some bumblebees (not sure what type but I think they are buff tailed) nesting in our garden.

I was really worried at first as my other half is really petrified of bees and wasps, especially as their nest is right in the middle of the only path from the back door to the garden, but we're both really attached to them now.

I've spent so much time in the garden this year and the excitement when I saw one of the bees fly straight out of the nest, into a male flower on one of my courgettes, and then into a female flower on the same courgette plant was amazing! I was so thrilled and felt so much more connected with the wildlife in the garden.

OH and I even 'rescued' a couple of bees last weekend when the torrential rain came down. I was out in the downpour bailing out the surface water drain that's right next to their nest as it had started to flood and the hole to the nest had got clogged so we cleared that. Spotted a couple of soggy bees in the water around the nest and scooped them out. They looked dead but I read something on a thread on the vine about them getting paralysed when they get cold so we took them inside and popped them on a few sheets of kitchen towel. Popped some warm water in a bowl, put a thick piece of cardboard over it and then put the kitchen towel on top of the cardboard. It was amazing! They started moving again, spent some time drying out, ate some of the sugar syrup I'd put on the kitchen towel and then flew off back to the nest!

It's scary to hear about the scarcity of bees (I'm up early enough to hear the 'Farming Today' programme on radio 4) and I am definitely going to look into getting a hive when I get an allotment and in the short term making my garden as 'bee friendly' as possible.

[WrexTheDragon]

Loads of bees in may garden at the moment.

They are loving my Callistemon and an Adrienne Blackberry, that I have just planted.

[BFG]

Looks like systemic pesticides are in the frame:-

Pesticides blamed for killing bees - Telegraph