Have any bees at your place?

Our pepper trees are just starting flowering and usually they're covered with hundreds of bees. There aren't any there....I've been keeping a watchful eye because of the worry of the bees disappearing. Have you noticed bees around your area? Or lack of?
Sherry

I've seen some wasp/yellow jacket sorts of things but can't recall any bees yet. My yard wasn't exactly prime bee habitat last year when I bought the place, now it's much better but I figure it'll probably take them a while to find it. I wonder if maybe the extra cold winter knocked the populations down a bit? Although bees live up north too where it gets really cold so maybe that's not it.

I've had wasps too and just this last week have seen a few of those big black bumblebee thingies buzzing around the japanese maples. I don't have a lot of flowers at this time of year so don't really expect to see them for another month or two. I have been considering planting clover in my front lawn in a bid to lure them in though.

I confess that I wasn't aware of the problem until Chuck (cbernard) brought it up that the bees are disappearing. Now I've started watching for them. There were a total of maybe 5 on my pepper tree today where normally there would have been hundreds. I'll hope for the best.....

Oh, I love clover. Just seeing it mixed in with the grass makes me happy but I have no lawn to plant it in. Loved the red clover back east also. Since the bare combs that I found hanging in one of our trees this last year, I'm wondering if the bees that I am seeing are the africanized variety. I give all bees a wide berth now since knowing that we have them.

I'll have to keep my eye out this weekend, if I get enough work done around the house/yard on Saturday I was going to reward myself with plant shopping on Sunday, and at the nurseries I usually see bees all over the place so I'll see if there are any there or not--if there's none there then I'm definitely going to be worried!

We have bees. Don't usually have a LOT - except two years ago when they swarmed on our roof! I have seen them around the pond and the salvias recently, though.

Good news,Kathleen...send some up here! I have lots of bee plants, so that shouldn't be a problem and you're not that far away 'as the bee flies'. Have you got my bees?!
Sherry

No, no, honest - I DID NOT steal your bees!

We've been meaning to put up an orchard bee nest for the apple trees, but it's on a long list of "to-do" items.

Kathleen, I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that my 'to do' list is longer than yours!

I just ran into one of our local people who raises queen bees that they send worldwide. Apparently, our greatest immediate problem down here has been our lack of rain.......we simply haven't been getting any. Also the freeze hit so many of the bee plants. The sumac are major bee plants in our area and were hit hard. I remember our elderly neighbor telling me years ago that sumac is an *indicator* plnat, that wherever it grows there is no frost and lately I see that all the sumac I see just about everywhere was hit hard. I guess when we're paying our high water bills, it may help to know that we are also helping the bee population. I'm told that the africanized bees do quite well in the drought situation.
Sherry

I haven't really been paying alot of attention to the headlines about the bees, but do use them as an indicator of my own garden's health. When I first moved to my house there were very few good insects and now in summer there are tons along with a lot more birds. I get a little kick every time I see a bee, a ladybug or a dragonfly. I'm now making more conscious effort to create a habitat that welcomes them all.

Although my garden attracts a more varied palette of animal life than what the old owner had here, I still don't see many honey bees. I've seen native bees and yellow jackets and one bumblebee.

Anyone interested in bees should check out UC Berkeley's excellent Urban Bee Garden site:

http://nature.berkeley.edu/urbanbeegardens/

Only a few bees this year, usually the lavender and pear blossoms are loaded. Very unusual as my garden is full of bee plants.

Ooooo-kay...I found bees...I'm sitting out in my work space under a big old pine tree, potting seedlings and I hear a few bees..thinking coool, bees, look up to see that they're making a hive hanging from the branch 6 feet above my head. They were not there yesterday and this thing is already about 14 inches long by 8 inches wide and

Okay, this what my hive looks like.....

Wow--that's quite a hive for one day's work! If it's anywhere near your house or an area that you're going to be near regularly you might want someone to come out and make sure they're not the African sort and remove them if they are--I'm all for bees in general, but the Africanized ones are very scary.

Wow! I guess that's why "busy as a bee" became a cliché.

I don't know if there's anyone who'd take them if they're the africanized and I'd have to move a lot of my tables and flats of seedlings for them to get at it,etc., so I'm gonna hope for the best. This big pine is next to my big shade structure and I use the dappled shade for a lot of my seedlings and that's where I do most of my potting. I'll try to send them*good thoughts*! It just never fails to amaze me the things I find going on here.
Sherry

Worker bees looking for queen bee and it how it doing...It goes away for while but I has this before in my old home in washer room which it has hole in wall so I spray with water to keep bees out. I did call the pest to come out and spray it...

I have many fewer at my raphiolepsis tree. Usually it is a total hum. I have seen some of the bumblebees about however. The thing about the raph was that there would be a lot of different types of bees there at the same time.

Thankfully we have had many bees at our community garden. The manzanita has been blooming profusely along the fence. It is covered in bumblebees, burrowing bees and honey bees during the day. I've seen quite a number of honey bees on the blossoms of borage, sage, thyme and the broccolis, broccolos and turnips that have bolted. The peas all seem to have their share as well. We are quite thankful that we still have some.

Also seen a number of parasitic wasps. These look somewhat like a yellow jacket except they have a longer abdomen and have long hind legs that tend to hang down as they fly (hover). These wasps eat a lot of pest insects, as well as laying their eggs in the small caterpillar/loopers.

This is so bizarre...that entire mass was bees, on top of bees, on top of bees and today they're all gone.....leaving behind one flat elongated comb about 7'' long and 4" wide..empty and they've apparently abandoned it. Abandoned just like the combs I found last year. What's going on?

da na na na, da na na na..............spooky.

I think I would be inclined to call in the Pest control people just to identify it. I would hate to think that some of the more scary bees were in there waiting to hatch.

Gee, Sherry, I was going to say I sent you some.

We had a swarm on our roof a couple of years ago and I was told they were looking for a place to build their hive. DH sprayed them with water to move them on. My pest guy said when they do that, they do tend to move on within a day or so.

Here's a quick explanation: http://www.ebeehoney.com/beeswarms.html

Kathleen, very cool indeed......now I know. I've always thought that any and everything a person needs to know can be found in a book...now I think the answers to just about everything can be found on DG as well! Such combined knowledge with this many people.
Sherry

I was wrong. It must have been windy out. I went out yesterday on a sunny quiet day and the raph was abuzz as it usually is.

There was a news story on the news tonight about bees swarming all over the county.

I've been trying to see if I could live without watching the news and apparently I can.....but I'm sorry to have missed that. Maybe they could just do the truly interesting things instead of all the daily murders we seem to get anymore.

I'm a news junkie - but I don't watch local news. The video is on the web site www.kfmb.com if you want to see it.

Thanks, Kathleen, the other bee news on there was informative also.
Sherry

So I'm at Trader Joe's today, and the lady in front of me says she'd had a rough day. Bee swarm! She had to call a bee keeper to come and get them and he estimated there were about 30,000. It cost her a bundle to get them moved.

I wonder if they would have moved on by tomorrow......? I would have been happy to let mine stay.....I'm sure we could have worked something out! They seemed mellow enough.

Zillions of bees here thank goodness! We are going to start beekeeping here soon! Can' wait...

For the past two years, we've had big swarms of bees in the area. You could watch them travel down the streets looking for places to build their hives in the neighborhood homes. You can deter them with water if you catch them before they get settled in.

This year seems to be more normal in that there are plenty of bees on the flowers and trees, but no big swarms. It could be that the fires in 2003 affected their normal patterns. They had a big effect on other wildlife populations like the local bunnies and snakes. These seem to be back to normal this year as well after unusual population swings for the past few years.

Hi TLeaves,

We had a big swarm go over our house about a week ago. I heard it coming for quite a bit, so it must have been big. Last year we had one stop on our roof and my husband sprayed them off with the hose.

Haven't seen a snake for a good while - I hope they come back and get our gophers!

See you at the round-up tomorrow!

Kathleen

Hi Kathleen,
We got yet-another snake today. That makes 4 this year, the first in March - believe it or not. That's an early record. All but one have been rattler's this year.

I'd love to see a few Gopher snakes myself. The little critters really tore up the yard this winter. We got'em though. There were 3. Now there are none! Haven't seen any since. Yeaaaaa!

See ya' ma ana.

We have yet to see a rattler here in three years (I think I saw a baby once) - though our neighbors across the road do. A couple of years ago DH left the garage door open and I went outside and nearly walked on a 6-8 ft gopher snake. lol It was hard to tell his size, as he had all these lumps in him and he was all curvy snoozing in the sun. Took me a while to gently shoo him off the front porch. That's the only one we've "seen," but I hope there are more around.

Later,
k

Next time you see one of those gopher snakes can you send him my way? I could use a few of those in my yard to keep the gopher population down!

Hah! I've been thinking about importing them! Last year we found out the neighbors up the hill had gardeners that were killing snakes. Don't know what kind, but I don't think they knew, either ('cept they weren't rattlers)! Grrrrr...