For whatever reason, honeybees and bumblebees are doing pretty well here on the east side of Madison. Since we are in the city limits, there are no orchards nearby that get sprayed with insecticide. Many lawns & gardens around here are maintained without using toxic pesticides, however, there are also weed-free lawns maintained with herbicide applications. I am not a beekeeper, but I do grow blueberries, so I pay attention to the local bees. We also have a garden, and a section of the yard with native plants, so there is always something blooming around here. I'm sorry to hear that insects have been scarce where you are living this year.

Those flowers are gorgeous, Larry!
Fortunately, bees of all kinds have continued to be common here. It doesn't appear that whatever is affecting them adversely is doing so in my little neck of the woods.
Sherry

Beautiful pictures.

I am also happy to report that I seem to have an abundance of bees of all kinds. Today the honeybees are boutiful - mostly on the blooms of my basil plants but also on the lantana, milkweed, and blanket flowers.

~Laura

If you still have honeybees in numbers, your colony probably doesn't have CCD, yet. After five years of serious studies they still don't know for sure what causes CCD. Lots of what appears to be valid possibilities have been associated with it though and all of them are being studied out. However they do know that when a colony does suffer from CCD, nearby colonies eventually do as well. Not because of infectious disease as pe se, but because they too are exposed to the same multiple circumstances that caused it in the nearby colony. In part why some bee wranglers (apiarist) are loosing all of their colonies, and others are loosing 30 to as much as 90 percent of theirs every year.
Larry

While bumble bees were probably the most common insect in our garden, I didn't see any honeybees. I saw ONE this season at a monarch waystation in Minneapolis.

Are there concentrated areas of CCD or is it common everywhere?

Tony

One of my former coworkers is apiarist and I know colony collapse is something that has occurred here in our area, but like I said, I have lots of bees in my yard. Two to five years ago, not so much, but the past two years they have been abundant.

~Laura

An OSU entomologist said in a radio interview this year that there were no documented cases of CCD in the Willamette Valley. In Portland, we have scads of bees because many people have become hobbyists. There are over 50 bee boxes within a half-mile of here, mainly in two stashes.

This was not the case five years ago.

Tony,
Just speculation from what I've read... with public awareness, especially with apiarist and commercial crop growers, some of the suspected causes of CCD can be at least reduced and that may be helping in some locations. While CCD is pretty much a worldwide concern now, it is obviously not everywhere. But with so many somewhat unrelated possible causes it may take years of study before it is known what for sure, or more likely a combination of what, and how to prevent it. In the meantime its possible CCD will be seen in places it hasn't been before.
L.

Couple more pics from yesterday. I haven't usede this simple point and shoot camera much since Sherry twisted my arm to buy it ;) ... so was just playing around with the zoom/macro to get an idea what it might and might not do. Leaves a lot to be desired, but good enough for the few pics I take now days.

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They aren't too bad - and with macro settings you have to be so still - very hard to do sometimes especially with a moving subject.

Here are few bees from my garden:

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They particularly like the basil flowers. I counted 10 honey bees this afternoon on one basil plant.

~Laura

Thanks for the pictures Laura. Moving objects are not hard to "feeze" if the lens, shutter and focus are fast enough. The problem I have is it is so small and light weight its not user friendly for man-sized hands working the shutter release unsupported, especially when at arms length and with a thumb; and it has no view finder - only a non-moveable screen that is more often than not hard to see out in the bright sunny days we have here almost year-round. Also doesn't help that I always use it P&S rather then choosing to program all the features it has for each shot like I would do with a manual camera. Even so I still like it better than the Canon S3 IS I bought and never used, and for about 1/6th of what it cost. I still prefer my manual and auto SLR's though for picture quality, have every imaginable accessory and lens for them, but they are film cameras and so not easy enough to share on-line.

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Yea - I don't know what I'd do without my DSLR. Its' really the only camera I use anymore. I'm still working on my lens collection - have four but want so many more!

~Laura

Okay, what is the real scientific name of honeybees? I kept expecting to read it in your post, Ladobe.

That is a really pretty shrub with the phlox-type flowers, but devoid of non-botanical life sounds like a wasteland! Fortunately that is not the case here. I see tons of insects, birds, leps, and bees, including honey bees. I have several large gardens, and a very natural yard. Many neighbors have gardens, as well as there are 3 farms that grow numerous flowers and crops within a 1 mile radius. I've seen hives at one of the farms, and probably there are more. We've also got lots of woodlands and wetlands, etc.

I questioned one of the local farmers about CCD and he said he didn't think that was a problem in the northeast US (??).

I usually have a lot more bumblebees and wasps here than honey bees. But this year I had a larger than usual variety of bees, wasps, and other insects. I especially had a lot of eastern carpenter bees and they can be kind of loud and freak you out buzzing past your face.

Just yesterday I went out and saw at least a dozen very busy honey bees on a stand of California poppies. Made me wonder if they had a hive nearby? They were pretty fun to watch in their frenzy, but would have not been as busy if they would let each other know which flowers they already checked! I got a pic of one on a poppy, and here is another pic from one earlier in the year on a coneflower.

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Larry, Those bushes are absolutely beautiful! I'd love to have some of them up here if they'd only grow here in PA. I haven't seen nearly the amount of honeybees the past several years that I used to see here. On the best day here this summer I counted four outside on the flowers. I have lots of bumble bees (or what I call bumble bees anyway), but the honeybees are practically nonexistent. I used to see hundreds of them outside on the clover in the lawn. I hope that the researchers find out what's causing the CCD. In addition to not having many bees here, the bats that have been coming here for years must have all died from White Nose Syndrome because this year there were none in the three houses that I have up for them. It's sad that creatures are disappearing. I'm glad that I still get butterflies here every year, some years more than others. I hope that you see more insect life there next year, Larry.
Cathy

terrene,
I try to remember not to confuse folks here with taxonomy other than for the lepidoptera and plants when I post. Those two they ought to be learning anyway, so at least by seeing them in my posts they may pick a few up. Taxonomy was all but totally missing here when I joined 5+ years ago... some use it off and on now so I must be a bad influence. ;) Anyway... to answer your question, several subspecies of Apia mellifera were introduced into this country to establish our honeybee base. Our "Africanized" honeybee is a hybrid between A. m. scutellata and the other subspecies they encounter in the America's as they spread north.

molanic,
More nice pictures... thanks.

Cathy,
Leucophyllum langmaniae is hardy to zone 7, are native in the SW and used here a lot in xeriscapes because they are very drought tolerant. So this species is borderline for your zone, but there are several species so maybe one would do fine in your area. Most have "Texas" or "Purple" Sage common names (when they are infact not a sage), with the same name often applied to more than one species. They are very common in Mexico growing wild in some of the places I've been, and literally turn the landscape into a puple heaven. Mine are manicured as is typical here with lanscapers, but they are even more spectacular free form in the wild IMO.

Larry

Thanks, Larry. I'll have to look into that sometime if there are any that would live up here. If they're drought tolerant, I don't know if they'd have done well this year since we almost had enough water here to float an ark. lol
Cathy

Okay, I hate to rain on everybody's parade. I have been doing a lot of reading on bees this summer/fall. First of all honeybees are not native. However, they were spread far and wide by the colonists. They were probably not a problem until recently. That is to say when they started to be factory farmed. There are lots of studies documenting the different diseases that Apis mellifera have suffered with this type of treatment. One study documents the loss of around 35% of colonies in the 2007-2008 period. This was assumed to be an underestimate. Anyway, when honeybees started to decline, they looked to bumble bees for pollination. They transported bumbles to Europe and back. They believe that diseases were brought back. In a landmark study, bumble bee species were surveyed in Illinois. Four species were found to be locally extripated, Bombus borealis, Bombus ternarius, Bombus terricola and Bombus variabilis. Others were in decline. These include species that were commonly found before. Many theories abound with probably several causes. One theory is that the widespread use of pesticides has lowered bees natural defenses to disease and pests. With the factory farming of bees many pests from abroad were spread within the US.

In addition, the loss of habitat for many native bees is a real problem. Just like our lovely butterflies. It is only with the loss of honeybees that farmers are starting to look at native bees. Often these are better at pollinating than honey bees. Several orchard bees can pollinate an entire orchard (not sure of the size they were talking about), as opposed to needing several hundred or thousands of honey bees. A blue orchard bee will forage for longer in less favorable conditions than a honeybee. The problem is that large farms have eliminated the additional forage that bees need once the crops stop flowering. Hence the need for imported honeybees because they can be brought in and removed to another farm when one crop stops flowering.

Well, I go on but I am really worried about bees.

Sigh,
Elisabeth

Decline of bumble bees (Bombus) in the North American
Midwest
Jennifer C. Grixtia,*, Lisa T. Wonga, Sydney A. Cameronb, Colin Favreta
aCenter for Biodiversity, Illinois Natural History Survey, 1816 S. Oak Street, Champaign, IL 61820, USA
bDepartment of Entomology, 320 Morrill Hall, 505 S. Goodwin Avenue, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA

A B S T R A C T
Declines in many bumble bee species have been documented in Europe raising several ecological and economic concerns. The nature and extent of bumble bee decline in North America is poorly understood due mainly to a lack of baseline and long-term data. Museum collections provide excellent sources of information on past and current species distributions, which can be used to infer changes in the composition of insect communities. Using the Illinois Natural History Survey�s electronic database of Hymenoptera and a recent biodiversity survey of historically sampled localities, we were able to examine changes in the richness and distribution of the bumble bee fauna of Illinois over the last century.We found that bumble bee species richness declined substantially during the middle of the century (1940�1960). Four species were locally extirpated: Bombus borealis, Bombus ternarius, Bombus terricola and Bombus variabilis. The ranges of Bombus affinis, Bombus fraternus, Bombus pensylvanicus
and Bombus vagans have also decreased in Illinois. Our analyses also indicated that current bumble bee diversity is highest in northern Illinois, where conservation efforts
would be most productive. Our study demonstrates that half of the bumble bee species found historically in Illinois have been locally extirpated or have suffered declines, supporting observations of broader declines in North America. Major declines in the bumble bee fauna coincided with large-scale agricultural intensification in Illinois between 1940 and 1960. Attempts to conserve bumble bees in Illinois should involve wildlife-friendly approaches to agriculture, such as increasing agricultural land set-asides and hedgerows, and employing integrated pest management

Elisabeth,

In my reply to terrene, "several subspecies of Apia mellifera were introduced into this country to establish our honeybee base" alludes to them not being an endemic species here. I can't agree with your suggestion that the problem started with "factory" farming bees as a valid cause of the current situation though when I consider that bees have been farmed for thousands of years, and even in NA in skeps by native races since way long before Apia mellifera sp started being imported here in the early 1600's (to be "farmed"). A more plausable cause would be NDD applied to what mankind has done to the earths natural resources, and the dire effect it has imposed on most living organisms since. NDD is one of the suspected possible causes of the mix for CCD.

While some landowners do eliminate natural habitat without what we may consider reasonable cause, many do preserve it along field borders, corners, in non crop fields on rotation years or on CRP land they have set aside for the future, and they do rely on the other pollenators it provides beyond the imported honeybees. Just some personal experience here, but while growing up on the ranch we didn't hire Bee Gypsy's for our crops, but we did preserve natural habitat on all of our livestock ranges and pastures, around and in crop fields where the lay of the land made it not plausable for crops or harvesting, and we had a few thousand of acres of CRP land also set aside. Doing the same has been heavily promoted with land owners for decades since by well organized interest specific groups to preserve and add habitate for specific species, and that would also benefit the natural pollenators.

Despite natural disasters, this world would be a lot better off if that ape hadn't learned to use a bone as a club, and passed it on as it evolved into mankind. ;)

Larry