Lack of bees

[Brenjon]

My Broad beans the sutton are in full flower. There seems to bre a lack of bees to polinate them. will they be OK and produce beans.
Regards Brenjon

[loopie]

I've noticed a lack of bees as well, I'm thinking of growing some extra flowers around the beds and also maybe a bee nesting box thing.

[Monika]

Same here, particularly in the strong northeasterly winds the last few days - not an insect in sight. I wondered if I could go through the broad beans (we only grow a few earlies, the rest are still quite small) and pollinate them with a paint brush?

[gowerbass come gardener]

totally different hear.i just found bees nesting in my compost heap bless em

[alan refail]

I don't grow broad beans any longer, but I always understood them to be self fertile.

We have seen less bees and other pollinators here, too, but there is a good set on pears, plums, apples, cherries and even on the sloes, so something has been busy

[peter]

Hopefully everyone has seen this months KG Poll about bees?

[Primrose]

For growers of climbing beans, I believe that French climbers are self-fertile but runner beans need to be fertilised. Certainly in the past two poor summers I noticed that in cooler wet weather when there was a lack of bees, I had considerably more flowers on my French climbing beans which fertilised and developed beans than I did on my runners. I now adopt a belt and braces approach and grow a 50% -50% proportion of each to ensure that even in bad summers I still get a crop.

[retropants]

Our comfrey was buzzing with bees on Sunday!

[ken]

Here in SWKent we eem to be OK for bees - the mason bee nest in the garden has never been more successful (but that may be a reflection of last year), and we've seen a fair number of bumble bees and honey bees around. But the big indicator wll come in another week or tw: we have a mature American hawthorn in the garden, and when it flowers you can hear the bees swarming all over it from across the garden. Great sight and sound! Meanwhile, my broadbeans are in flower and looking healthy, but I haven't looked too cloely to see what kind of a set we're getting.

[Compo]

I too have a comfrey plant and it attracts a lot of bees, a real boon to the allotment. I have never had a problem with broad beans not producing beans, but surely it must be the case that we cannot see the bee action on our plant unless we are their 247 or at least during daylight hours?

CoMpO

[Primrose]

Did anybody see the programme about Lack of Bees on BBC2 this evening? The number of bees dying in the USA, and especially in the Almond Orchards of California amounted to millions I knew the problem was bad but had no idea that it had become such a global issue, apart from in Australia where bees still seem to be thriving. It's worrying that nobody yet seems to have found an answer although I can't help suspecting that apart from a virus, the build up of insecticides and herbicides in the soil, in plants and on seeds is also to blame. It seems that all we can do on an individual basis is try to grow as many bee-loving plants as possible in our limited patches, to help them survive.

[naturediva]

Yes, I also saw the BBC programme tonight about bees dying out and it is an understatement to say that its tragic and disasterous with regard to the consequences of the bigger scale of things.

I have also pondered possible causes for this dreadful decline including insecticides etc. and wondered whether too much honey has been taken from the hives and although bees are given replacement sugars and nutrients, they are no match for the natural goodness of bee produced honey which protected their immune system.

Recently I came across either an article or tv item where somewhere in China they had so abused the use of insecticides etc. there were no bees left and farmers were reduced to pollinating acres of fruit trees by hand with feathers.

For some time, I have been considering having a bee hive in the garden - for the bees - not for any honey for myself - so in a small way try to help the bee population. However, I am a bit nervous of taking on the responsibility (worried about possible swarming etc.)
There is a local bee keepers association where I could obtain more information etc. Really I'd hope the bees would get on with their life in and around the hive without interference from me (except where necessary for the purpose of hygene/welfare) - my heart is willing but my head needs to be certain I could take that on.

Last autumn I dug two more small borders in the garden and planted perenials especially for the bees and butterflies (its difficult to have too wide a flower bed with 3 dogs and 2 cats trampling over everything) so I have also planted up quite a lot of tubs with flowers too.
Some bees hummed around the blossoming couple of apple trees and pear tree in the garden, though the brisk wind removed much of the blossom fairly quickly.

There is another tree I call the 'bee tree' as that is just full of bees when the tiny blossom appears, however I don't know what type of tree it is so will try and post some photos of it when in full bloom as someone may be able to help identify it.

Do any of you have advice for a potential bee keeper?

[Johnboy]

Hi Naturediva,
Tonight is the second time I have seen that programme and I find it very disquieting.
We desperately need research into the whole episode and at last the government, having given billions to the banks and stolen public money through over inventive expense claims, has now decided to act with a piddling £10 million grant.
I am sure that somehow pesticides do kill off many bees during a year but doubt if they are the primary cause of hive collapse.
It was interesting to note that Australia does not have the varroa mite.
This mite carries many nasty viruses and certainly cause some hives to die. The Bee scientist seemed to think that Varroa is at the forefront of the problem.
Again it was interesting to note that France has banned the so called nasty pesticides that they thought was the possible the cause of the problem but it has made no difference.
The gaff made by one of the beekeepers who said that Oil Seed Rape is in bloom for about three weeks. The OSR hereabouts has been in bloom since the end of April and will be producing flowers till at least mid July.
They also showed aerial spraying which is now banned in UK and had fallen out of favour long before the ban and really before the onset of hive collapse.
It is all so worrying because of the total uncertainty of it all.
If I were you I would keep taking up Bee Keeping on-hold until the research has produced some findings.
Locally about a million bees were stolen from an orchard this last week.
I cannot remember how many hives but certainly several.
JB.

[oldherbaceous]

When i did a repair on the Church roof Thursday afternoon, i heard the droning sound of what i thought was going to be a wasps nest, but on closer inspection it is a very busy Honey bees nest.
It will be interesting to see if it keeps going all year.

[richard p]

i saw it a couple of weeks ago
the defra "expert" claimed the loss of bees was down to varoa, but the varoa mite has been arround uk bees for a long time now, most beekeepers are familiar with it and the mite is visible to the naked eye. i cannot beleive that experienced bee keepers would not know exactly what it was if varoa was responsible for the current large scale losses.
there was the east anglian beekeeper who split a batch of hives, the majority going onto oilseed rape most of which died out , and the rest going into woodland , which survived with no losses.... its pointing to something to do with the insecticides sprayed onto the rape crop.
whilst my garden now has few if any honey bees there are wild bees and other insects bumbling about. the americans seem to be up the creek without a paddle cos they have "efficiently" killed off all the wild insects in and arround their vast orchards and relied on transporting in honey bees for pollination, when that single species hits a problem there is nothing about in the wild to take over the pollinating role.
it seems to me that pesticide use must be at least a contributing factor, but its going to be virtually impossible to prove it regardless of how much money our government gives to defra.
all we as individuals can do is control our own use of insecticides and help the wild bugs by leaving "untidy" gardens so they have the shelter and food they need during the winter.