Noticed many/any honey bees this summer?

I always assumed they were native to NA, so if that's the case, I wonder if there are enough native pollinators of various types to fill the gap until the honey bee stocks hopefully recover?

Quote: Originally Posted by Praxius

And I've also heard that this past year, their population has boosted..... I still haven't had my coffee for the morning yet, so I don't have the energy to go searching online for the source.... but here where I live in NS, I've seen plenty bumbling around..... more then what I usually saw during the summer at least.

Perhaps they're dying off..... then again, perhaps a reason why their population seems to dwindle at times is due to migration to different areas.

The natives here seemed to do just fine without them long before Europeans came along.

Quote: Originally Posted by Bcool

Well, if you haven't had your coffee yet I'm surprised you could find the energy to tap out this reply.

Thank you! When you say you've seen plenty bumbling around, are you referring to bumble bees or honey bees?

Apparently it's not migration. Honey producers and commercial honey bee breeders all over North America are being hit with this, in some areas to the point of having to totally restock with uninfected bees from Europe if they can afford it. Fruit & veggie growers are using chemical pollinating products in hard hit areas. It's the S. US that's been hit the hardest so far, that's where the Australian imports were introduced.

...... The swarm behaviour is completely typical for honey bees. It’s the way wild bees repopulate their colonies. What is atypical is the volume of swarms buzzing about, looking for a new home this spring.

“We had a very mild winter and good September, so the bees went into winter in good shape,” said Paul Kelly, the official University of Guelph beekeeper. “They came through with a larger population than usual, so the swarming is more pronounced and earlier than in other years.”

For the past few years, beekeepers were seeing at least 30 per cent of their colonies die off from weather and disease over the winter. Kelly predicts that will be closer to 10 per cent or less this year.

“I’m getting calls every day about swarms,” he said.

What Bondy saw in his backyard on Old Country Place was a group of bees that had split off from an overpopulated colony, with the queen in tow. It happens every year just before the main nectar flow, Kelly said........

Beekeepers across New Brunswick say colonies have bounced back after a devastating year in 2009.

Last spring, many found their bees had died over the winter, but things are looking up this year, beekeepers say.

"The bees seem to be really rebounding this year," said Claude Hachey, a honey producer from Bathurst.

"We're having a really hard time keeping up. Mind you, that could change in a week or two, but I haven't seen bees this vigorous in a couple of years now.".........

........ But the problems in the United States, such as what’s been called colony collapse disorder, are likely due to a number of factors related to the way huge commercial operations run their hives. Factors suggested include stress from shipping bees long distances across several U.S. states to pollinate crops, mono-cropping where only one crop is grown on several acres, inbreeding, chemicals and more.

“You always hear the bad news, never the good news,” says Stagg. “Even in B.C., central Vancouver Island lost a lot of their honey bees over the winter due to various things. The rest of the province has had the best winter, haven’t had success like this in over 20 years. That’s the majority of the province. But you have this small pocket around Cowichan that lose their bees.”

One of the Shuswap’s successful beekeepers is Silver Creek’s Bob Hack. He has been keeping bees since 1999. He started with two nucs – nucleus colonies – which are small honey bee colonies centred around a queen. He hasn’t had to buy one since........

Yes, very true. But apparently the import of non-native plants, the clearing of vast amounts of native plants and trees and the heavy use of industrial and agricultural pesticides since we lot came busting in has wreaked a lot of havoc amongst the native insect world unfortunately - many are extinct. (Mind you, the Black Widow spiders seem to be thriving very nicely here, especially in our workshop - I swear I saw one toddling back to her lair carrying a full grown mouse! Ack!!)

Quote: Originally Posted by karrie

We had tons of pollinators in the yard this year. Hornets, wasps, bumbles, honeys, and even flies, crawling all over everything. The linden tree outside my kitchen window was a constant buzz for its entire flowering cycle. The herbs and onions and tomatoes have all been thick with insects. It's a nice change from last year when all we had was hornets.

Quote: Originally Posted by #juan

My wife has quite large flower beds and we see a fair number of pollinators. Most are bumblebees. Honeybees would
not make up even ten percent but I think there are more this year than last.

Quote: Originally Posted by taxslave

Black Widow spiders seem to be thriving very nicely here, especially in our workshop - I swear I saw one toddling back to her lair carrying a full grown mouse! Ack!!)

I think that may have been my X.
Never paid much attention to just what was buzzing around our place other than there is lots of activity.
Does it matter what is doing the pollenating so long as it is getting done?

Quote: Originally Posted by taxslave

Does it matter what is doing the pollenating so long as it is getting done?

Quote: Originally Posted by taxslave

Does it matter what is doing the pollenating so long as it is getting done?

Quote: Originally Posted by Praxius

I wouldn't count them out just yet.