looks like the bees may be recovering some in this area....

[johnblagg]

for the second year in a row I captured a wild swarm of bees after 15 or more years of not seeing a wild coloney at all ......WHOOT I get to do some beekeeping again.I had actually given up after having lost my last hive to the sudden coloney collapse thing long ago and at the time not knowing what it was ...just came home to missing bees and assumed some one decided to kill them on me again because they did not like bees next door ......had that happen a few times as well.

The swarm captured last spring has done very well so I have hope that this one will as well

[gnathaniel]

Awesome, John! Some friends of mine who are farmers and beekeepers just captured a wild swarm, too. Hopefully things are looking up for the honeybees...

--Nat

[Roly0217]

That's great news John. I've got lots of nectar plants for the butterflies and bees. Since I first learned about CCD I started to plant more flowers and leave some of the wildflowers grow for the bees.

[johnblagg]

Originally Posted by gnathaniel

Awesome, John! Some friends of mine who are farmers and beekeepers just captured a wild swarm, too. Hopefully things are looking up for the honeybees...

--Nat

LOL a few years ago I lived in Taylorsville NC and caught a swarm while living there too ....weirdly enough I dont even care for honey I just love beekeeping ....bees are simply incredible things!!!

And NC has realy great laws to protect the bees there ....they realy know how much they need them with all the apple orchards

[WhiteRabbit]

that's great!

[RosieC]

Arround here we see masses of wild bees. It almost seems like the wild bee populations are growing with the drop in honey bee populations.

I have some wild bees living in the wall of my house, we can see where they go in and out and if you stand in that area on a sunny morning you can watch them (and have them flying arround you) as they go in. But we also see all sorts of other types in the garden which differ from the ones in our walls. They really love our catoniasta which is flowering just now, but they also seem to love everything else in the garden.

When we found the ones in the wall last month, my hubby was reading about what they like and it seems we've unknowingly planted a lot of bee friendly plants

[RosieC]

Just something interesting my brother told me.

Some studies have shown that Honey bees are less susceptible to diseases if their honey is not ALL replaced by sugar syrup when collected.

I can't remember if it was a case of only collecting/replacing half of it, or if it was a case of mixing half and half in the syrup that was put back to replace it.

Anyway, the thought was that immunities are passed around the colony in the honey and that by removing all the honey humans have been unwittingly reducing the immunity to diseases in the honey bee colonies.

[johnblagg]

actually Rosie the bees are much better of in many ways if not fed surp ...especially now that they have the GM corn surup made from bt corn...the verdict is out on that one yet but BT toxin is Bt toxin ....and feeding sugar surup or corn surp can cause other problems like other bees robbing hives and ants wasps ect to rob them as well

[RobS]

I share the observation of Rosie that where the honeybee is less present wild solitary and bumblebees fill the gap. There is many different ways to help them. First is not to clean your garden to much and have plenty of flowering plants all over the year. A simple log with different sized holes drilled into them is a great nesting site (3-8mm, 50mm deep) or a bundle of reet / bamboo.

It also makes good sense that bees will do better if they can keep their honey. Honey is more healthy for us so it must be the same for bees.

[johnblagg]

well in the world before man started moving everything around to suit himself there were no Honeybees in the new world at all and a lot of other natural pollinators ...in fact most people dont relise flys are a major pollinator and the honey bee gets a lot of help in out compeating the wild forces....when it dissappears they once again have a lot more food