lack of bees
 

There were plenty of bees around back in april-may but none now.
A warning sign is my cuke plants with plenty of blossoms but no cukes.
The type that have male and female blossoms, so bees are a must.

You could pollinate by hand.

That's too bad, slugworth. I wonder what happened to them? :?!?:

Lawn services and home lawn treatments in the quest for the perfect lawn have been the end of a lot of honeybees.

Communities or even home owners doing mass spraying for mosquitoes have also killed a lot of bees.

It's a tough time to be a bee right now.

Too much rain maybe.
The humidity today is 94% which isn't good for tomatoes even if there were bees around.
We need jungle tomatoes.

I saved a carpenter bee that was in my rain barrel thrashing around last month.
I hope he returns the favor.

Several universities have done research on mosquito fogging that indicate fogging only controls 5% of flying mosquitoes per spray and 0% of mosquitoes in grasses and in trees or bushes. That 5% reproduces itself in a week which is the recommended waiting period between spraying. So effectiveness equals zero.

On the other hand, mosquito fogging will destroy 25% of pollinators with each fogging even if done at night which is supposed to be the safest time for pollinators. Recovery is 0% for bees and each poisoned bee returns to the hive and spreads the chemicals to the rest of the hive. After a month of spraying for mosquitoes the pollinator population is decimated while the mosquitoes thrive.

If you want food, stop fogging.

I don't think that too much rain is effecting the bees. I used to have 4 hives of honeybees and the rain never effected them. In fact probably more flowers are blooming now due to the excess rain so the bees should be happy.

We decided to quit raising honeybees last year after the hives all died en mass probably due to pesticides and this was not the first time. We were just getting tired of seeing piles of dead bees. It's depressing.

Oh and BTW we kept honeybees for over 20 years so it's not like we didn't know how to keep them. There are just too many pesticides in the environment and bees have a 2 mile range so even though we are organic gardeners and don't treat our lawn, others do and they are well within the 2 mile area. It's sad and I would imagine that wild bees are suffering the same fate.

With all this rain mosquitoes are going to be a menace.
Old Lyme is just across the river,where Lyme disease originated.

I was thinking further about this and a few bees do nest in the ground so excess rain might affect them. Yellow jackets live in the ground but I don't know that they do a lot of pollinating. They do capture a lot of insects to feed to their larvae but they can be nasty buggers and I steer clear of them.

I too was beginning to wonder where all the bees were this spring and not just honeybees but the bumbles as well. But it was extremely hot here for about three weeks. Nary a bee to be found. Maybe they were staying out of the heat?

Then the weather finally broke and we got some rain and cooler weather. Still no buzzers in the garden but they were all over the crape myrtles that had started blooming. Then they moved to the blooming cleyera and finally started coming into the garden. I guess they liked other stuff besides the cucumbers! Pretty selective boogers.

Now they're swarming all over the corn as it pollinates. Honeybees as well as bumbles and a ton of other things. A huge humming in the corn. It's a relief to see them again.

I'm thinking maybe the very odd spring weather with long lasting cold temps and tons of rain in various parts of the country have upset the bee pattern.

I'm noticing a lack of bees as well here in NJ. Granted many of my flowering bushes have been slow to bloom after an aggressive prune last year and a nasty winter, so I'm hoping that corrects soon.

The honey bees are all over my asparagus fronds with it's tiny flowers. The bees just hang on them and their back legs are orange with pollen.

I have cherry falls tomatoes that you are supposed to plant in baskets but I planted them
in the ground and let them sprawl.
Some of those plants have green tomatoes,probably due to creepy crawlers getting at the
blossoms.I had to stake my 1st tomato plants today,after the monsoon ended.

I dont recall seeing any but that doesn't mean anything.
I have been getting up way before dawn to go to work.
When I get home I dont go outside it is so hot.
I spend all day sweating in the heat and cant wait to get in the house where it is cool when I get home.
No doubt all the spraying is doing something to the bees and critters.
I haven't even seen the lizards like I normally do running across the drive.