where are the bees?

Has anyone else noticed the absence of bees this year? In past years, my summer squash and zucchini blossoms would be lousy with them, but I have not seen the first bee on them this year.

Unfortunately it is something that is occuring all over the country. Alot of it has to do with the amount of pesticides that are over used and some are dieing due to disease. I've actually heard people say they don't won't certan flowering plants in their garden because they'll attract bees!
Hopefully many people will read your question and take better care of our bees, with whom we can't live without.
Liz

Wow, I didn't realize there were people out there who wouldn't want bees in their yard. Heck, I feel bad mowing the clover in my yard because I know how much the bees love it.

I had heard about the decline in bee populations and hive collapses, but I didn't realize it was so wide-spread. This is very unsettling. We need those little guys!

It's happening all over the world. The interesting thing is that organic bee keepers are not having colony collapse! It the commercial guys who are .. they are the ones who transport their bees, give them anti-biotics and genetically manipulate them to be bigger.

Just published research is finding that gm crops with herbicide resistant genes are probably a large part of the problem. These genes have been found to jump the species barrier and have been found to be living inside bacteria in the gut. The really scary part is that the bacteria inside humans is probably affected since it is virtually impossible to totally avoid gm foods unless you have been completely organic your whole life and never eat out.

There is a whole discussion about this in Garden talk forum .. lots of good links for information.

http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/698321/

X

Hi,
I live in Grantsboro, NC and the bumble bees are buzzing around my flowers now, but only for about the past two weeks or so. I enjoy bees, except for the wood bees here that are overly abudant and love to eat my front porch but nectar bees, butterflies, hummingbirds and the fireflys at night are a welcome to me during these warm spring and summer months. One thing I have noticed is I am not seeing many hummingbirds at this time compared to last year. I had so many swarms of them before, I couldn't keep the feeders filled up. So far, I only have a few. I wonder if the late freeze we had killed them?

I wondered the same thing about the hummingbirds. I have only seen a few this year. I haven't been in the pool much this year to watch them but I think last year it was still cool at this same time so it was late getting in the pool. I have a few bees. My husband is thinking about starting to be keep. I don't know how active I would be with it but he can if he wants to. I don't sit outside too much because those blasted misquotos :( They just love me. They bite me in places I can't begin to spray:)

I've had alot of bumblebees this year. Tons of them. More than last year, so I guess that's good. But very few humming birds here as well... So far.
Deb

Bumblebees are here a plenty, but I haven't seen a single honey bee yet.

We actually get quite a few different varieties of bees at our place, but we one of the few nurseries that don't use pesticides, except under dire emergencies and then I go for soap and oil to smother first and I do it in early evening when all of my critters are resting. I've spent houes watching differeny bees antics. We had someone come out and they'de been to a butterfly gardening semina and the person giving the class actually said don't put your butterfly/hummingbird plants in your front yard because you will also attract bees, wasps and hornets! I couldn't believe a so-called 'expert' was warning people that bees and wasps ans hornets all behave the same and you don't want them in your yard. The honeybees are all over my blue African Basil right now and I pluck off leaves, move the pots and pull weeds around them and I have never beem stung.
It's nice to know there are others out there thinking and worrying about our bee populations.
Liz

I have lots of bees in my garden this year.

There was an article in our local newspaper stating that so far the bees in North and South Carolina have not been subject to empty hive syndrome.

My cucumbers and even some tomatoes are flowering.

Our weather has been dry and relatively cool for this time of year so thankfully we haven't had too many mosquitoes yet.

Hi DS Babe, good to know we aren't suffering from the hive collapse. Our biggest problem down here is the mosquito planes which dump pesticide on us. They are aware of where the hives are and they do not intentionally spray there but a little breeze can carry the chemicals. A good friend had her hives inadvertently wiped out by the mosquito plane one year.

We unfortunately have had some nasty mosquitoes down here lately. There has been no rain so I am guessing they must be marsh mosquitoes as we did have some high tides.

Unfortunately, some parts of SC are affected. I'm in the Upstate, and finally saw a honeybee yesterday. One. Last year they were swarming all over the weigelas, and there is plenty of clover in my yard, so much that last year I didn't go barefoot in the back because of the bees. Nary a one on the clover. We do have lots of Bumbles. I guess I need to refresh my techniques for hand pollinating the Veggies.
Margo C

I had a bunch of these on my holly bushes in Mar/Apr (notice the pine pollen). Is this a honeybee? Not sure. :)
Deb

It looks like a honey bee to me. That pine pollen is something I definitely do not miss. Our property here in Florida has one lonely pine and it's out back in the horse's pasture, everything else is an oak of some sort.
Liz

Any suggestions for what type of perrenials to plant to attract the bees? Thanks.

rebecca30

Hey catmad! I'm in the low country and have a skazillion Bumble-de-bees on everything from squash to Salvias...but I've only seen 1 honey bee so far this year! That's down from a skazillion honey bees and few Bumble bees a few years ago. Something's going on... Don't think it's the mosquitoe planes---the stuff they spray doesn't differentiate between between mosquitoes, Bumble Bees, or honey bees. It kills them all. But Honey Bees have almost disappeared from my yard. A bee-keeper friend of mine reports no problem with his hives, and he gets sprayed with the same stuff I do. But a lot of his hives are "off campus", so they may not get "the blessing from the sky" that we get closer to town. But something strange is happening to the Honey Bee population!

Hey All!! I am concerned for the bees!! I try to keep my garden as free of nasty stuff as possible. I dont spray a thing!!
I have a lot of bees on my bushes in the front of my house. I was out there trimming and they were just buzzing around me!! I also have not seen as many butterflies as I have I had in the past. But I do have my hummers!! I just love those guys. Does any one have any suggestions for keeping the squirrels away from my hummer feeders? They are destroying them!!
Happy Gardening!!

PS does anyone think a bee skep would help? Any feedback?

I gave up my hummingbird feeders after my nasty raccoons got to them and tossed them around the deck and yard. There was sticky sugary syrup everywhere. Now I plant a lot of plants that attract hummers and I have them year round. I also keep large planters near my windows so I can watch their antics. Find out which plants attract them in your area and keep a few pots where you can see them.

There are several things that are affecting honeybees. One is a mite that has pretty much wiped out wild honeybee populations. Beekeepers spray for this and, at least here, have it under control. The newest threat according to a beekeeper I spoke with recently is that swarms of bees are disappearing from kept hives. There are no bodies, so it's not a die-off. So far it's a mystery. He said that they haven't had the problem yet in our county, but who knows if it will happen in the future. Guess we'll hope for an answer to the problem in the near future.

I wonder if the hard freezes we had a while back affected them. Before the freeze I saw lots of Honey Bee's on the flowers and shrubs, but the freezes have seen very few. Along with everyone else the Bumble Bee's are plenty.

This message was edited Jun 1, 2007 6:53 PM

I was at a bee keepers home this morning and she reports the bees are fine this year, no problems at all.

That's the kind of news we want to hear.
Thanks

Good News, that's a nice change :-)
The bees have bee all over my blue african basil, still... they really seem to love the pollen on that herbs blooms

I also notice there's not as much butterfly's in my Lantana this year in addition to not alot of bees in my yard.

rebecca30

hmmmm... do any of your neighbors use a lot of insecticides? Has your weather been out of the norm?
Liz

rebecca30, I agree about the lack of butterflies. I haven't seen many in Greensboro and my sister in Chapel Hill mentioned the same thing.

I have seven humming bird feeders and a 150 red canna's and the hummers have a hard time clearing the bee's off the feeders so that they can get a drink.
I change the humming bird feed syrup once every ten days and use the left overs in shallow pans for the bee's, it helps to keep the bee's busy while the Hummers are busy drinking.
I have at least a dozen hummers flashing around at any given time.

That's a great idea, Cid...I once put french fry pieces and some sugared cola on the end of a picnic table so the bees could have some, and leave us alone. One wasp chewed a ff in half and drug it away from the rest...It was quite fun watching them enjoy their own private feast...Even more fun than trying not to eat one when they wanted to share ours!

I've noticed a lot of bees at our feeders, too, the hummingbirds just avoid them. We have three hummingbird feeders within 15 ft. of each other and the birds completely drain the feeders within about 36 hours. I guess I need to get more feeders!

We're getting bees today! We decided, what the heck, we'd start a hive. Seems to have become a popular hobby since so many people are concerned about the recent decline in bees. We've decided on Italian bees for our first hive, since they're supposed to be pretty docile and mellow.

Borders
That sounds like fun! I hear that beekeeping becomes quite the obsession...not that any of us on DG have any of those;-) Keep us up on your progress...and could you post great pictures? I've never seen Itailian bees!

I have always wanted to be a beekeeper.

Good luck to you.