On 2013-08-14 08:05:46 +0100, Bob Hobden said:

"Janet" wrote
News said:
snip

It is so weird - and worrying. I've seen more bumbles than ever before
this year, but hardly any honey bees. I'm seeing my neighbour at the
weekend to talk about his hives (non-medical variety), but I think they
suffered really badly as a result of last year's summer

From the pov of eating honey that is a worry, I agree. But as honey
bees have been subjected to all kinds of disease and pest, it's sad but
not surprising that domesticating them has led to a bit of a crisis.
Wild bumble bees, otoh, are just fine, if our garden and greenhouses
are anything to go by and as they do just as good a job of pollination,
they're a welcome sight.

Only, they seem not to do as good a job of pollination. Numerous
posters have commented the same combination of unusual events in their
garden this year; hardly any honey bees; a bumble bee population
explosion, runner bean flowers failed to set.

Runner beans depend on insect pollination.



I'm not convinced of that, our beans are doing just as well this year
as they have before and the bee keeper removed his hives from our site
last autumn. It depends on the bumble species I think, if they are
honey bee sized they do as good a job if they are the huge ones then
they don't because they can't get into the flower the proper way.

On a separate note yesterday evening I came across a huge bumble, and I
do mean huge, in the flower of our hibiscus hedge on the allotment. It
was absolutely covered in pollen all over and seemed to be almost
drunk, it just kept stumbling around inside the flower.

We're not growing veg this year, other than potatoes, tomatoes and
cucumbers but we have all sizes, shapes and colours of bumbles around.
In the last two or three days the Eucryphia has been a kind of high
rise restaurant for them. As you walk down the path, you hear this low
buzzing sound and then, as you actually get there, it's overwhelming.
I've never seen so many bees in one place and it was just the same last
year. There have been a few but very few honey bees and I have seen
precisely one ladybird! Some of the bumbles would certainly get inside
just about any flower but some, such as those over the Angelica gigas
prefer those open top flowers because they're too big to get into most
'closed' types of flower. We've had a lot of bumbles in the
greenhouses and garden, paying attention to the Salvias, as well.
Unfortunately, we haven't - yet - seen a humming bird hawkmoth on
Salvia involucrata which seems to be a major favourite. And bees do get
'drunk' - apparently lime flowers (Tilia) are particularly good for
that, almost to the point where it can harm them, I was told.
--

Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.com
South Devon
www.helpforheroes.org.uk