For the first time this year, I noticed small bee-like bugs that hung around my lavender flowers along with the bumblebees. These beelike bugs would hover in the air just like a hummingbird. My best guess would be they are hover flies. As I watched, however, every once in a while a hover fly would attack a bumblebee and the bumble would fall to the ground and stay there as if stunned, then go back to the lavender flowers, only to be zapped by the hover fly again.

Has anyone else ever noticed hover flies beating up on the bumbles?

Lois in PA