Far less bees around this year?

Supercell

My Pluot (plum apricot cross) is ripening up nicely and normally there would be loads of bees buzzing around trying to get a bite but nothing at all this year, not even a single plum has been eaten and plenty have been nabbed by the kids and me already so there are plenty of ripe ones.

We live close to the countryside in Loughlinstown and I'm wondering if farmers have been spraying neoncotinoid in the fields this year and killed a lot of the insect wildlife or maybe its down to the colder start to the summer this year. Has anyone else noticed far less bees around than normal this year?

mykrodot

maybe its because its like Winter outside! No heat, lots of wind, extremely changeable. Not conducive to bees or butterflies. In fact an awful lot of my flowers are simply not flowering yet.

It was sunny for an hour here this morning where I live in Kerry and there were bees on my borage and other wildflower mix. But those windows are few and far between.

Danzy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058358501/far-less-bees-around-this-year

Look for the more obvious answer.

It's been nearly pissing rain every day since June 14th last year and plants are stunted from the cold wind the last few months as well .

There has been little forage this year for bees.

Breeding honey bee queens has been very difficult this year.

No shortage of bees here. I took a video of hellaborus covered in bees on 4th feb outside my window so they weren't deterred by the cold. They are in plentiful supply around the rest of the garden, I've got a lot of pollinators out early and they've been feeding steadily on nepeta and some hardy geraniums and the other few bits since early spring.

Ronan|Raven

Plenty of them around my rock daisies this year, munching away.

SouthWesterly

Ive about 60,000 at my place.

magicbastarder

I don't think I've seen bees munching on plums before; wasps yes.

Thargor

I was going to make this thread, I have a big honeysuckle in my driveway that was covered in bees and bumblebees for the 3 hot days we had and now nothing before or since, my back garden is fairly wild with big clumps of nettles and buttercup in the verges and a massive old fuchsia the size of a tree thats usually buzzing all Summer, nothing this year, not a single butterfly either.

magicbastarder

we have several plants that when they were flowering were getting lots of action - the ceanothus, for example.

Jim_Hodge

No shortage of bees of any type around here. The flower borders are full of them. I've never seen bees feeding in pears. Does the OP mean wasps?

Hippodrome Song Owl

My big fuschia, which is usually alive with bees, has only a handful so far this year.

phormium

When there was a few fine days couple of weeks ago the campanula I have on the patio was full of bees, now I haven't been out in the garden all week due to weather so don't know if they are hiding from the rain too!

bmc58

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058358501/far-less-bees-around-this-year

My oragino plant is flowering at the moment and usualy covered in bees.But not seen any for the past week since it started to flower.Certainly seems like they are in trouble.Sad.

magicbastarder

FWIW liam lysaght (head of the national biodiversity data centre, i follow him on instagram) has been posting about the lower number of butterflies reported so far this year.

I took a crappy picture of a butterfly yesterday, although it could have been a moth but yeah, haven't seen very many so took it for posterity.

Edit: crappy picture of butterfly. I was very far away.

Seth Brundle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122344468#Comment_122344468

As with previous years, our large ceanothus was alive with bees (honey and bumble) last month. The constant sound from the shrub is something else.

Danzy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122344953#Comment_122344953

Everyone should plant one of these if they can. The sheer pleasure of seeing one of them worked, also it's a nectar volume thing .

I am firmly of the belief of you want to help pollinators late autumn and early spring up to June

magicbastarder

we used to have an escallonia in the garden, and it flowered as late as october - and i've never seen a plant like it for attracting bees and butterflies. it was probably 5m tall with a 5m spread at its peak, and i once took a photo with i think ~50 bees and ~50 butterflies on it - a lot of the bees were queens stocking up for winter, i think.

unfortunately, it succumbed to some fungus, which i understand is the fate of many escallonias.

blackbox

I haven't noticed any shortage of bees this year. There were lots of solitary bees out early this year. We never see too many honey bees around here (Wicklow).

Supercell

Great to see some have normal amounts, so hopefully its just local and a once off, albeit concerning. No bees or wasps here to those that asked. I dont think its the slightly cooler than usual start to summer - i've seen bumble bees in December here, but not a single one so far this summer. Hopefully they will show up at some point.

RainInSummer

Half an acre under wildflowers, was absolutely thronged with bees and butterflies and assorted insects last year. Feck all this year.

I heard it was the coldest June on record the other day. Not sure on the source there though.

Speak Now

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122349965#Comment_122349965

Coolest June since 2015, nowhere near coldest on record.

RainInSummer

Cheers.

macraignil

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122344976#Comment_122344976

Ceanothus (of which I think I have 6) are just passed their main flowering and were humming with pollinators when they were in full bloom. Bees are a bit more distributed now with the bumble bees still enjoying the fox gloves, but it is unusual now that the buddleia are in full bloom without the butterfly numbers increasing to match the extra food supply arriving. Guess it is just down to it being a bit cooler than some other years at this time of year and the butterfly numbers will increase again a bit later in the year. I agree about providing flowers for pollinators throughout the year so have tried to have something blooming in most months with videos posted on my own youtube channel with clips of flowers listed by month of year they are in bloom here in case it helps anyone else select plants for their own garden to do the same thing.

Happy gardening!

I.am.Putins.raging.bile.duct

I found a small hive of bumble bees in the back ditch of my garden. they made a little hive under an old plank that was leaning up against the ditch. lovely to see them in my own place living off the wild flowers.

Ken Tucky

Was thinking the same

We have some really wild lavender which normally has hundreds of bees on it..

I've just been out to it and there is not 1 bee anywhere to be seen.

Very strange or is there a simple reason rather than a sinister one?

looksee

Agree about the lack of bees and butterflies, though I was just outside and have a Johns Wort covered in flowers that is heaving with bees and other insects.

mykrodot

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122350455#Comment_122350455

thanks for sharing, just subscribed, look forward to watching these clips!

mykrodot

it's warm between the showers today and my borage has lots of bees on it which is great to see.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Io96wApYgRQ

came up on my feed last night

https://www.thejournal.ie/bees-in-ireland-6432534-Jul2024/

Norton, who has been keeping bees on land in Westmeath for 25 years, said: “Beekeeping is exactly like farming, extremely weather-dependent. Bees don’t have umbrellas. They don’t like to fly in the rain.” 

Eleanor Attridge of the Co Cork Beekeepers Association also attributed lower bee levels this summer to the recent trends in the weather, citing the effects of rainfall on Irish flowers.

“It’s totally dependent on last year’s weather, and if you think about last year’s weather it started pouring rain in June and continued for the rest of the summer,” Attridge, who has been keeping bees in Cork for 12 years, said.

“The minute it starts raining it washes the pollen out of the flowers so they wouldn’t have the pollen reserves to build up the colonies or to provision the nests for this year’s pollinators… So there’s bound to be a decline in pollinators this year as a result.”

was out checking the bee count after all the rain recently and have seen quite a lot around, more than usual.

looksee

I was just admiring the number of bees on a honeysuckle just outside the window, though I agree that generally there have not been so many insects of any sort.

Well…apart from spiders but they are all spinning webs in my house, goodness knows what they are catching, but there are loads of webs.

It just occurs to me there have not been any clusterflies either - yet.

SouthWesterly

Very good piece written by beekeeper's on why here

https://www.thejournal.ie/bees-in-ireland-6432534-Jul2024/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR3w4TODCy4A7dJeCgXnEDrjnT5H-iLWf-fWoSIzQiYtE1F4cAVcGi0i43A_aem_fMRkjHVFwSBDN_sXwL197A