I totally agree that we must be sure of the differences between bees or hornets (more easily recognizable) and the Narcissus Bulb Fly so I will post this last picture again on this thread which if I do say so my self, is pretty darn good! You might all take this picture off this thread and save it in your files for comparison this season when you think you might see a NBF. When you take it off and save it you will be able to enlarge it even further so see every hair!

Donna

Thanks much for that Blanca! I am a bee lover and am concerned about our wild bees too. Thanks for the info on the film. Thanks too Donna for the excellant pic.

Thank you very much for adding your excellent ID photo, Donna.

Sal, you are most welcome. I hope that you watch the film, and tell others who might be interested about it.

Best,

Blanca

Excellent photo, Donna!

Doing the "Bee happy dance" this morning! We'll have peaches this year!
K

"Spring has sprung the grass has riz we don't have to wonder where the flowers is" in Texas anyway....

Nice to see a nice looking bee for a change!

I was just out back working to cut some wood into smaller pieces, and while I was trimming a crepe myrtle (not attempting crepe murder) I was buzzed by many bees. Turns out they had discovered the hummingbird feeder!! Well, whatever makes them happy! As long as the don't give up on the fruit trees!!
K

Wonderful! Keep doing the Happy Bee Dance!

And I love Donna's ditty too!

-B

Saw this at the garden center on Sunday.
K

There WILL be peaches!
K

Last year i participated in a study on bees. They wanted to know how many there were and where they are and they could use some more help if you're so inclined here's the link. we had to plant sunflowers and count how many bees we saw it coming to it in a 5 to 10 minute time frame. spring is coming and they're wanting to start again and looking for more people to help.

Here is a link that might be useful: the great sunflower

Thank you bees!!

Yum!!

I just finished eating the 7th and last peach; they were freestone (!) white peaches that were amazingly sweet. This was the little tree's first year. If it hadn't been for the late ice storm, there would have been dozens of peaches,. Oh well, next year....

The bees are currently enjoying late Meyer lemon blooms.
K

I so wish we had an orchard in which more tropical types of fruit trees could survive along with apples and pawpaws and other goodies... like crunching several gardening zones together... ah, well.

Peaches sound good... especially peaches grown at home... do you grow yours organically?

I don't use any chemicals in the backyard, due to the dogs, so yes.

Awesome, Kristi! That's the best way to go, in my opinion!

I don't use anything but natural, composted animal fertilizer on the apple and pawpaw trees... and they seem to love organic care. They produce very well!

This is for all you bee lovers!!

This poor bird house has been entirely taken over by these bees. They've even decided to shingle it to suit their taste!

Luckily, this hangs quite high so there isn't any chance that someone would bang their head and I guess this fall what ever honey might be inside will remain all theirs! Hope some hapless raccoon doesn't small the honey and decide to see what's inside!!

Donnaâºâº
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Donna, those are yellow jackets!! They can be very agressive and the sting is horribly painful!!
K

Here is a link that might be useful: Yellow Jackets

Donna....I know you don't like to kill anything, but I can't get this image out of my head. I got stung by a yellow jacket once and it hurt for days, like a red-hot poker!!

I went on line, and it looks like these predators attack and kill honey bees...

"Yellow Jackets are one of the most common pests, they feed on bees, larva, brood, honey bee bread and pretty much anything they can take advantage of in the hive."

I have to be careful that they don't set up housekeeping in my compost bin....but they aren't welcome anywhere in my yard!!

I found a kind of humorous, yet serious blog about the battle between bee keepers and yellow jackets! Here's the description of each:
Bees are softly furred, industrious, communal workers who look after one another and build colonies that last years upon years. Bees collect nectar and pollen from flowers and store it away to eat and to feed to their young during the long winter months. Bees will sting in self-defense, but, because they leave their stinger behind, they die when they sting and are thus careful about their use of their terrible weapon.
Yellowjackets are nasty, mean-spirited wasps who build their nests from wood-pulp, not wax. Each colony starts the year anew from a single queen, with no sense of contact or history of their previous generations. They eat bugs and other meat that they can lay their greedy little mandibles on, hovering around garbage cans and other foul refuse. They can sting again and again, and do so with malice and relish.

The site is different from the link. The blog is: http://www.hive-mind.com/2005/09/yellowjacket-vs-bee-super-smackdown.html

K

Here is a link that might be useful: Bee informed

Someone was asking me what those fat fuzzy black furry bees are that hover around the gardens and flowers. I didn't really know, but it turns out they're bumblebees. The attached link has a good profile of these bees. There's a second kind of fat black bee that looks like a bumblebee, but it's called a carpenter bee (one has a furry abdomen, the other has a shiny abdomen; I don't think I'll get that close to look!).

It's been fun, learning so much on this thread... Thanks to Blanca for starting it!
K

Here is a link that might be useful: Bumble bee info!

Fist bump of respect! To the bees, that is! :-)

They're our pollinators... among other insects... and they make delicious, and often healing, honey... not to mention beeswax!

To lose our population of bees would be devastating to our planet, indeed...

I think I would probably rid my yard of yellow jackets, and other types of bee killing hornets... especially if I were beekeeping, and most especially if I or someone in my family were allergic to them... although, hornets also have their place within the ecosystem.

Most stings occur by pure accident... but it's never a good idea to invade the territory of hornets, thereby appearing a threat to them, because they will sting... and not on accident!

If that beautifully "shingled" birdhouse were quite a distance from my own living quarters, and not near enough that people would bother them, I might leave it alone... otherwise, I'd want to remove it for safety's sake.

Apparently I was invading the YJ's territory by walking around a lake at work. Darn thing stung me 3x between 2 fingers....shaking it off didn't work it just stung over and over!

I am allergic to bees, but invite them into the yard.
K

Do you carry an epi-pen, Kristi? I only ask out of curiosity... I've known a couple of people that were incredibly allergic... to the point a hospital visit would be necessary if they were stung. One of those people carried an epi-pen everywhere he went.

I don't anaphylax....just incredible pain and swelling, more so than normal.
K

Ah, ok... that's good, then. Well, not good... but better than it might be! You know what I mean! :-)

Just noticed that my peach tree already has tight little buds. Argh... Too early! I want more peaches, but last year's ice storm in a March took me by surprise. Winter just started last week...these buds are too early! Guess I'll need to prepare another freeze kit for the peach tree.
K