Bees ... where are they?

SEE

MRSTITTLEMOUSE wrote: »

I've got a lot of fat bumble bees in my garden that are very active however over the past two years the honeybees have been coming and either I find them in the house or lying in amongst the compost.The ones in the house I put out and they just climb away and I usually find them dead.
Last year and a couple of times this month I've found dead honey bees crawling round the path and then they just seem to keel over and die.
I don't use any pestisides but something must be killing them.
Some of them were covered in white stuff and I looked through a magnifier and the white stuff was actually tiny mites crawling over them.They were covered.
It's such a shame.

Mites on bees is the price you pay for importing food from Asia, Mexico and Africa.

toadyfrog

Some bees seem to have made a home in my birds nest. I feel sorry for the blue tits that spent weeks making their nest in there, but I do like watching the bees going in and out.

ceridwen

SEE wrote: »

Mites on bees is the price you pay for importing food from Asia, Mexico and Africa.

..and now I have to confess ignorance as to why that might be...

Can you explain?

Debt_Free_Chick

Yes I saw the programme, which made my blood run cold (shudder).

I've tried beekeeping but lost my colony suddenly two winters ago (2007/08). I've decided to give it a rest for a while to see how the research pans out.

I live very close to an orchard and a beekeeper had almost two dozen hives on their until two years ago. I don't know who it is, but the hives are no longer active. Another local case of colony collapse?

Interestingly, in the garden yesterday, the shrubs were covered in bees - only they were bumblebees. I spotted only ONE honey bee, whereas there used to be hundreds in previous years.

Very, very worrying!

arkonite_babe

I'll add this to the bees, where are they? thread

TismE_3

sb44 wrote: »

Yep, here it is:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00jzjys/Who_Killed_the_Honey_Bee/

WOW thanks for that link for iplayer, i've never used iplayer before, and im impressed that i could go back and watch the programme.

As for the programme, well i just never knew and learned so much, exporting bees from austrailia, i would of never thought it went on!

Was thinking throughout what can we do ? thinking about my own gardens yes i have a few flowering strubs, but have mainly been consentrating on low maintainance and evergreen plants and shrubs, so im definatly going to put more consideration, to attraching more wild life and bees into my gardens.........what else can we do?

Tisme x

RAS

they love a lot of the old fashioned easy to grow annuals that self seed. poached egg plant, foxgloves, welsh poppy etc.

if you want to keep with the low maintenance add a few and they will look after themsleves.

Also add mahonia, one of the best sources of food for bees in the winter. They love buddleia - I have globulosa which has little orange pom-poms and can find several bees to a flowerhead.

They like all the labiates - plants with lower lips like bugle and betony.

Mojisola

We're doing all we can to encourage the solitary bees in our garden - https://www.insectpix.net/ and https://www.insectpix.net/Homes_for_bees.htm

SEE

ceridwen wrote: »

..and now I have to confess ignorance as to why that might be...

Can you explain?

The mites that effect bees originate from those regions where Monsanto have been spraying crops with pesticides. The mites have become resistant to pesticides and are now in sufficient numbers and health to kill the bees. Many claim these super mites have been brought in living on imported food.

Lotus-eater

RAS wrote: »

they love a lot of the old fashioned easy to grow annuals that self seed. poached egg plant, foxgloves, welsh poppy etc.

I have loads of poached egg flowers this year and I am seriously worried, I have seen no honey bees at all, lots and lots of other bees, but I think no honey bees, maybe one, I wasn't sure. It's very worrying.