Where are all of the Bees?

jabe1

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I don't know how many have noticed, but the Bee population is seriously hurting!

I live in suburbia, lots of homes built from 1920-1960 or so. When I was growing up, you needed to watch your step when walking on the lawn while clover was flowering. You would step on a bee. These days, I'll bet it's 90 percent fewer bees.

I hear people still talking about hating them and wanting to eradicate them. It looks like we're well on our way.the question is, what are we going to eat when they're gone? Bees are responsible for pollinating about a third of our food supply, and yet we keep using pesticides and insecticides with reckless abandon.

Scares es the crap out of me thinking about it. No chemicals for my yard...
 

bykfixer

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I remember my dad saying "all the wild bees got wiped out by a mold" way back around 2000 or so.

I have a neighbor who raises bees. He rents hives of them to farmers and then sells the honey.

One day he and I discovered a tree near our home that looked suitable for raising bees. It worked.
Now in our little slice of heaven barefoot little kids are getting stung by bees again.
 
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Thetasigma

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I expect once we have killed off all the bees, we'll have to develop hive-mind pollinating drones to replace them. Still won't be the same though.
 

recDNA

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The problem is well known but not well understood. Our survival depends on bees so scientists better be up to the task.
 

jabe1

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I really think it comes down to our indiscriminate use of pesticides. Almost every landscaping plant at big box stores is pre treated with Neonicotinoids. The EPA doesn't even test all of these chemicals themselves, they rely on the manufacturer's data(it's gotta be true). So, in the name of convenience, and trying to get what we've been convinced is the ideal, we are poisoning our environment. Short sighted.

Hopefully people will start to listen to the scientists again, despite what our members of congress tell us. No one is willing to take any responsibility for the problem, placing the blame on "natural" occurrences.
 
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nbp

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Plenty of wasps and hornets, those devils, but not a lot of bees. At my parents house they have plants that attract bumblebees and I love to watch them. They are so docile and just happily go about their work humming around crashing into flowers to collect their prize. I like true bees, not so much the yellowjackets and wasps and such. They sting like mad.
 

recDNA

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Plenty of wasps and hornets, those devils, but not a lot of bees. At my parents house they have plants that attract bumblebees and I love to watch them. They are so docile and just happily go about their work humming around crashing into flowers to collect their prize. I like true bees, not so much the yellowjackets and wasps and such. They sting like mad.
Agreed. We also have bumble bees but not honey bees. The bumble bees live in the ground. Bees may be more exposed building in trees and unfortunately inside walls of homes on occasion. When that happens they do terrible damage. Much rather have yellow jackets in a wall (and I did) than bees.
 
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April 2015, a friend and I were mowing the lawns at our church. He, Nick, was using a John Deere riding mower, and I was using a walk-behind around the trees and for the tight corners. All of a sudden I notice there's a huge, buzzing cloud surrounding Nick and me. At the same time I was trying to process the phenomena I see Nick and the Deere coming at me as fast as they could. In Nick's defense, he was frantically waving for me to get out of the way, but I could tell from his countenance it was every man for himself. :eeksign:
I may not have run better than a Deere, but I did run faster! When we realized we were no longer in danger we cautiously returned to where we encountered the swarm. It, they, were flying from one side of the church to the other then finally disappeared.

The next day one of our pastors called to inform me there was a large group of bees at the edge of the church roof. They had returned and found a place to take a break.

The edge of the roof is about 25 feet above the ground.

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Bee sure to enlarge this ^ picture.

I searched local bee keepers on my cell phone and found one that was very excited to come and relocate the bees. By the time he arrived the queen and her followers had started a new home in the red bushes. I had some large pruning shears in my truck which Alex, the Russian bee keeper, used to cut the branch where the bees were accumulating.

After an hour or so most of the bees had joined their queen and were on their way to their new home.

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~ Chance
 
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recDNA

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If you thought I was correcting spelling you have the wring impressikn. I don't even attempht to spell words correctly when thumb typing! I just didn't know they advertised. I thought of it like a hobby. I know they are big in farm country but I grew up a city kid.
 

bykfixer

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When travelling about through neighborhoods with lush green weed free irragated yards...
That is part of the problem.
Golf courses and shopping malls also contribute.

There are lots of bee keepers in cities. Same with folks who raise back yard chickens.

But in city enviornments unless people allow mother nature to provide clover, dandelions, and a bunch of other flowering "weeds" the bee population will remain unseen in most circumstances.

Any bee keeper will tell you mold is a huge issue these days. Combine that with subdivision covenants requiring perfect lawns and bushes and the problem will continue.

Go out in the country, say at the edge of the city where lawns are unkept, but allowed to grow plants mother nature provides and you'll see plenty of bees.
 
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If you thought I was correcting spelling you have the wring impressikn. I don't even attempht to spell words correctly when thumb typing! I just didn't know they advertised. I thought of it like a hobby. I know they are big in farm country but I grew up a city kid.

Too funny! I almost spewed coffee on the iPad. Now days, everybody and his brother's kid have a website. I just searched local Beekeeper and my zip code. Instant results.

~ Chance
 
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mcnair55

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Same here in the UK a real shortage of bees which nature desperately needs.Wasps which are of no use whatsoever are plentiful.
 

recDNA

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Same here in the UK a real shortage of bees which nature desperately needs.Wasps which are of no use whatsoever are plentiful.
Some of them help fertilize fig trees. I don't know if you have figs growing in UK?
 

Flying Turtle

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I was pleased to see some honey bees inspecting my cucumber blooms the other day. Maybe the crop this year will be better.

Geoff
 

Taz80

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Bee's are a pretty big business, For instance Beekeepers will rent out thousands of hives to the almond growers in CA. to pollinate the trees. Its gotten big enough or bad enough so people are stealing the hives. There's no pesticides in my yard either, and there's plenty of clover and dandelions in my lawn.
 

jabe1

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Tax, that's good to hear! My hope is that homeowners will realize that they are complicit in the demise of the bees, and change their expectations of what makes a nice lawn.
 
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