Are you seeing bees?

The honey bees go to my garden soil as well, usually they are collecting water there.

camprn wrote:The honey bees go to my garden soil as well, usually they are collecting water there.

I wondered if that might be it (water), except that their hive is on the opposite creek bank and they have to fly over the creek to get to my MM. Maybe MM-broth is tastier than creek-mud-stew? Sure makes better vegetables...

I went to a plant sale the other day and bought a little punnet of milkweed starts. altogether the totaled 12 plants and I have re-potted each in a separate container.

The milkweed plant on show looked beautiful;  big and sturdy. I have never seen a monarch butterfly here, but the plants will also attract other butterflies and insects.

Kelejan wrote:I went to a plant sale the other day and bought a little punnet of milkweed starts. altogether the totaled 12 plants and I have re-potted each in a separate container.

The milkweed plant on show looked beautiful;  big and sturdy. I have never seen a monarch butterfly here, but the plants will also attract other butterflies and insects.

Yup, mine are in bloom. The bees and the hummingbirds visit every day. It's almost time for the monarchs. 

BeetlesPerSqFt wrote:

camprn wrote:The honey bees go to my garden soil as well, usually they are collecting water there.

I wondered if that might be it (water), except that their hive is on the opposite creek bank and they have to fly over the creek to get to my MM. Maybe MM-broth is tastier than creek-mud-stew? Sure makes better vegetables...

Honey bees typically fly close to home but will travel 3-5 miles to get what they need. I think they like the compost.

I have seen all manner of bees; big ones, little ones, waspy types, and today saw my first honey bee drinking from my birdbath! They LOVE my Walkers Low Catmint...see more of that beautiful plant in my future! And the lantana, but that is annual.

Kelejan--YAY! My milkweed was leggy and fell over last year, but I did raise one Monarch in the fall for the Big Migration! Lots of other things enjoyed it as well. This year, I pinched about 3/4 of it back to bush it out a bit so it is sturdier with more branches.

We still don't have many bees here yet. The occasional bumble here and there, and a wasp or two.   I'm very disappointed and sad. I have one quarter of the fruits on my fruit trees that I had this time last year.

Could it be too cold still?
CC

CapeCoddess wrote:We still don't have many bees here yet. The occasional bumble here and there, and a wasp or two.   I'm very disappointed and sad. I have one quarter of the fruits on my fruit trees that I had this time last year.

Could it be too cold still?
CC

I think yes.  Too cold.  It has been a cold/hot/cold spring.

This is re-posted from my Fayetteville thread.  My echinacea has been attracting honey bees.

We've got lots in the white clover & bee balm just workin' away spreading pollen & collecting nectar for themselves. I'm glad to see them!

Windmere wrote:This is re-posted from my Fayetteville thread.  My echinacea has been attracting honey bees.

Umm - that's a bumble bee. Both are good to have around.

Pollinator wrote:

Windmere wrote:This is re-posted from my Fayetteville thread.  My echinacea has been attracting honey bees.

Umm - that's a bumble bee. Both are good to have around.

Oh rats!  Our family was excited about that "honey bee."  Oh well, yes the bumbles are good to have around.

Not sure why first picture is small and sideways...but if you click on it, it is my 2 beds of milkweeds one at top, and the other towards the front. In front, also Walker's Low Catmint (absolute bee MAGNET). And pretty blue flowers to boot. Marigolds, and more milkweeds. I pinched them back hard in early Spring because mine last year were straight poles and fell over.....

Daylilies and hollyhocks have tons of visitors;  bees, and hummingbirds.

Then Hollyhocks, marigolds and some nasturtiums in there to add to the fun!

see on netflix or in iTunes

An ag friend in AZ just posted this on Facebook. Has the hive been invaded/destroyed and they are just looking for somewhere to light until morning?

"Can someone explain this. Bees swarming 8:30 at night. Temperature is 63 degrees. Earthquake indicator?"

sanderson wrote:An ag friend in AZ just posted this on Facebook.  Has the hive been invaded/destroyed and they are just looking for somewhere to light until morning?

"Can someone explain this. Bees swarming 8:30 at night. Temperature is 63 degrees. Earthquake indicator?"

 There are several solutions . 

A swarm issue from a nest /hive late in the day and clusters up in a shrub low branch with no place to go to till the scout bees return with a newly mated  late queen which would be a new natural queen for hive /nest late supersession. In such a case the swarm will stay on the branch till the scouts find a new home or as in many cases the swarm is a small fourth or fifth issue from the hive/nest ... so small it's not really viable .
  ( the bee's die off a few each hour till suddenly all die )

 Some times small swarms are on  low hanging branches are disturbed by a gust of wind , a creature or bird and the cluster falls off the branch . At other times when you switch your yard flood lights on the bees in these clusters think it's day time so fly to the lights .

 A slightly different scenario happened to me  one very hot and humid late September evening  I was extracting honey one about   20.00 hrs just before it was dusk or so and the cellar smelt that glorious heady uncapping / extracting of honey smell .  I'd left the window open as it was very humid & hot down in the cellar with the 2 x 3 foot electric  hot water melting tray going full tilt.

 Alison went out into the stock sheds to do the evening duties , when all of a sudden the cellar was invaded with bees from several different hives that were in our home apiary.  There were a heck of a lot more than those shown in your pictures . I quickly shut the window , grabbed the big 10,000 candle power hand torch & fair ran down to the stock sheds and turned off the four 500 watt flood lights on the sheds ,  the walked the 50 mtrs to the apairy with the torch on and sat it on the furthest hive.
 Spent the next five min or so watching the bees come flying in down the light beam & going to their own hives before turning the light off.

 Back at the cellar there were still bees every where so I turned the light off went back to the hives and shine the torch towards the cellar window this time , Came back into the cellar aand opened the window , left it on for an hour or so till it needed recharging , had a look in the cellar ..there were very few bees still inside . So I closed the window and carried on my extracting.

 Come 23.00 when it was all done , washed down and put away  I put the house flood lights on and found that on the wall just above the cellar window there was several fist sized clusters  of bees . I left them to their own devices .  There were none there in the morning,  so they'd either been eaten , died and got blown away or had survived the night and flown back to their own hive as soon as it got light and the air temp reached 50 oF ( 10 oC as that's when honey bees start working the day shift .

I have been seeing a lot of bees in my garden this year. I have a lot of flowers (because they give us beauty) and bees really seem to enjoy them too. Especially the daisies, Day-lilies, hydrangea and lilac trees (in bloom), oregano- thyme-, and basil flowers.

This blur of a mini bumblebee was on my feverfew in my weed overtaken perennial bed today!  Many smaller bees still around.  And smaller butterflies and moths....

Mimi2 wrote:I have been seeing a lot of bees in my garden this year. I have a lot of flowers (because they give us beauty) and bees really seem to enjoy them too.  Especially the daisies, Day-lilies, hydrangea and lilac trees (in bloom), oregano- thyme-, and basil flowers.

Good!  I saw many earlier in the year as well, so I was surprised to hear that my beloved bumblebees are headed to the endangered list....

Still seeing bees in our garden even though the temps have been down to freezing overnight.

These photos were taken this morning in our front yard marigold bed which gets plenty of sun.

She's so furry!

So cute!  

Shiny butt:  carpenter bee

Fuzzy butt: bumblebee 

Both adorable!  

yes, we still have bees temps are between 55-72 here in northern Illinois still seeing the yellow mason bees very small like bumble bees the bumble drones I think have gone underground under my peonies their usual spot .
The brown mason bees are nesting the leaf cutters seem to be getting around still as the nest box has many tubes full just about time to put then in the frig till next year!