WHERE ARE THE BEES?

[bigpinks]

yard is full of clover..honey and bumble bees been here all summer

[gorbelly]

I have TONS of bumblebees, carpenter bees, and sweat bees in my garden this year. I've also seen quite a few mining bees and leafcutter-type bees.

I've seen some honeybees, but not as many as the others, and I'm fine with that.

However, bumblebees seem to get going rather late. I don't start seeing them regularly until early June, after which their number steadily ramp up.

[b54red]

I don't know if they are back in the numbers I would see twenty years or more ago but I am seeing more bees than I can recall in decades this year. When I had squash, cucumbers and cantaloupe in my garden there were a lot of honey bees and I mean a lot. I am still seeing them in the garden but now I see more carpenter bees and bumble bees since there are not any large flowers for them. All that is left in the garden are peppers and tomatoes. I talked to a friend of mine who also gardens heavily and he said he has seen the same thing this year so maybe the bees in this area have made a good comeback. A few years back a honey bee was a rare thing to see.

Bill

[Labradors2]

There are tons of bumble bees here this summer. Initially, they were drawn to the clumps of Catmint growing in my flower garden, but I cut them back a week ago and now I'm noticing bees a'buzzin' around my tomato flowers - not so good for seed saving

Linda

[gorbelly]

Originally Posted by b54red

I don't know if they are back in the numbers I would see twenty years or more ago but I am seeing more bees than I can recall in decades this year. When I had squash, cucumbers and cantaloupe in my garden there were a lot of honey bees and I mean a lot. I am still seeing them in the garden but now I see more carpenter bees and bumble bees since there are not any large flowers for them. All that is left in the garden are peppers and tomatoes. I talked to a friend of mine who also gardens heavily and he said he has seen the same thing this year so maybe the bees in this area have made a good comeback. A few years back a honey bee was a rare thing to see.

Bill

I don't worry much about honeybees. They're not in danger of extinction and never have been. As domesticated livestock, essentially, they have us to keep their populations high. CCD was a financial problem for beekeepers and honey consumers but not really a threat to the vast population of honeybees in the world.

Wild bees, especially many native bees that are much better pollinators than honeybees, are in danger, though, so I really enjoy seeing bumbles, leaf cutters, halictids, etc. getting excited about the flowers in my garden.

[peppero]

When I started this thread I had few bees in my garden; there has been little or no improvement.

Jon

[gorbelly]

Originally Posted by peppero

When I started this thread I had few bees in my garden; there has been little or no improvement.

Jon

To attract and nurture native bees (which are the ones that actually pollinate tomato, eggplant, and peppers), it's important to provide both habitat and flowers they can live on throughout their active season.

If you live in an area where people keep their yards too manicured or plant flowers that appeal to the human eye but may not offer much nutrition to bees, this can be as harmful to native bees as pesticides. Lawn is useless to bees--they can't nest in it, and if you keep it weed-free, it doesn't offer clover and dandelions that are essential food sources, especially dandelion, which is one of the first food sources available to bumblebee queens when they emerge in the spring.

Lots of info on what kind of terrain they like and which flowers help them on the Internet, especially the Xerces society.

If you plant cucurbits (cucumber, melon, squash) and don't have so many bees that they're practically elbowing one another out of the way to get at the flowers, then that's an indicator that you have a true shortage of bees in your area.

Helping out native bees is something we can all do on a small scale in our own little yards and is well worth doing, IMO.

[GrowingCoastal]

I keep wanting to tidy up and cut back the parsley and fennel flower stalks. Well, every time I look those plants are covered in bees etc and I go away without cleaning up. I'll wait until they go to seed.

[jtjmartin]

Good news for the bees. Hopefully the comeback will continue.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/goo...cid=spartanntp

(I apologize if this has already been posted)

[Gardeneer]

in my garden there are lots of fat bumble bees. Honey bees are rare.
More than anything else , bumble bees love basil flowers. And butterflies too.