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Wasps and Bees? (1 Viewer)

Talon 1

Well-known member
Is it my imagination or are there very few of them this year? My sunflowers usually are covered in them but i have only seen one or two for days.
And no wasps?

Anyone agree or have i moved to a wasp and Bee free enviroment?

I used to know a pest controller who used to tell me that it depended on what weather we had in April and May which depended on how many we got but i can't remember what he said. I am sure if it was a dry couple of months then little wasps or bees but not sure if i got that the right way round?
 
Feels like there have been hardly any wasps up here this summer - think I'll have been lucky if I've seen a dozen all summer! Had one fly into our shop last week and it was TINY!!! :h?:

As to the bumblebees, I've got a healthy population in my garden and my privet bush was alive with them last month - Neil refused to walk past it because he was paranoid about getting stung! *wimp* ;)
But, now you've got me thinking, I don't actually think I've seen THAT many bees too - certainly not Honeybees! Perhaps their numbers HAVE been affected this year - Harry will know! ;)

Gill
 
Plenty of wasps here until a few weeks ago, right by my backdoor a nest under the eaves but 'my' blackbirdfamily ate the lot over the space of a few weeks. Unless they moved on ( do they do that? ) or expired otherwise, I haven't seen a single one since.
Very few honeybees but a fair amount of all kinds of different bumblebees until recently, now very few. Got to be weather-related, as well as disease-?
Bluetit
 
We have had quite a few bees but not as many as normal.Usually the hebes are ablaze with Bees but not so many this year.

Wasps...............only seen 3 this year.We had a nest in the eaves a few years ago and that wasn't nice.I like bees but am not partial to wasps.

Usually in October they go for the apples put out for the Blackbirds, before they die off and I try to stay well out of the way. B :) B :)
 
After last years population explosion of social wasps there does seem to be a shortage of them this year and so far I have not had one in my mothtraps(not that I am complaining),Bumblebees however seem to be at their usual level and honeybees in our area are still reeling from varroa,so are well down.

Colin.
 
I certainly haven't come across any shortage of Bees or Wasps this year in Northumberland and Durham. I've even seen several of the small parasitic wasps frequently called 'flying jewels' because of their bright metalic electric blue and pink body colours in my own garden.

Whilst walking along the riverbank just a few hundred yards from my home today, I saw a large number of bright yellow insects flying into the flowers of Himalayan Balsam. Being unsure of that they were I 'tubed' a specimen only to find that they were a very common wasp Vespa sylvestris that were covered all over in pollen. There were literally hundreds of them on this riverbank.

Harry
 
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