to ask you to save a bee

[wonderingsoul]

As you know bees are very important, but the numbers have decreased by alot over th epast couple of years.

i saw a post on the dreaded facebook, asking if you found a bee not flying. or laying around. mix up some white suger with water, pour on some tisue and put it next to the bee, or if the bees to sick place the bee on it.

it acts as a quick engry intake and hopfull the bee will fly off.


i found a huggeeee bee in my living room today, and i have to admit i am scared of them to. but it was trying to get back out the window but couldnt fly high enough. so i did the mixture, it crawled onto it and drank it. i have to admit it was pretty amazing seeing this so close up.
it had it fill and flew right out the window to the flowers below.

i just wanted to share, as i ts pretty cool and to ask if that if you can, help them. we need em.

[Traceyloveshoney]

Please don't feed honey to bees!!

You may be saving one only to pass on disease to it which could kill the whole colony when the bee goes back to it's colony. White sugar water is fine (never brown) but don't bee (ho ho) too upset if it doesn't make it. The workers/foragers aren't designed to live more than 6-8 weeks when they're working hard in the summer.

[DrHolmes]

Don't bats do more pollination than bees?

I like bees though, We had a nest every year in our loft and once me and my brother found a nest on the ground in a field. My mum called a beekeeper and a while later came back to us with some jars of their honey. :)

[MrsGeologist]

I knew the sugar water thing! Yay! A fried had to feed her bees sugar water last year because there weren't enough flowers.

Also, this is anecdotal, but my Gran's lavender flowers attracted LOADS of bees.

[peggotty]

Why not brown sugar Tracey?

[HouseAtreides]

I tried to rescue a bee last week. It went badly.
I tossed a cup of boiling water into my sink and accidentally launched it over a bumblebee which was already doggy paddling in some dishwater. I fished the poor thing out and put it on a plant on my windowsill.
It came round and started exploring- straight into a tiny spider web with a mini spider who thought all its Christmases had come at once. It bit and tried to wrap the poor bee but couldn't even move it- it was like a squirrel on a rhino's back!
Poor old stunt bee got free and didn't seem to be especially bothered by the bite. However it did walk straight into another cobweb, this time vacant. (I kept going away and returning to find it in another predicament- I wasn't watching the whole time)
I freed it from the web and put it into a bowl with some kitchen towel soaked in sugar water.
15 minutes later and bee actually seems revived and is buzzing its wings. I tipped the bowl up a bit so it could climb up the damp paper and climb out into the sunshine, and left it to get on with things (me too!)
When I returned the poor bloody creature was legs up, drowned in the pooled sugar water.
Fucksticks.

[Grumpla]

I have a couple of Bowles Mauve perennial wallflowers in my garden. The other day I had about twenty monarch butterflies and almost as many bees on one bush! They are very easy plants to grow and take cuttings from, lovely blue green foliage and purple flower spikes.

Also have a massive clump of comfrey which is always full of bees - easily 15-20 at a time.

Nothing better than a garden full of fuzzy bumbles

[wonderingsoul]

bees cant digest brown suger.

yess to the op who mention the bumble with a white bottom. it was one of thouse that i helped today. it was huge and at first i did flap and run out the room [blus] before i remebered the suger thing.

[LackaDAISYcal]

We have a cotoneaster and the bees absolutely love it; chives, sage and thyme flowers seem popular, and of course a lawn full of clover!

I usually pick up exhausted bees and pop them on the nearest bee friendly plant; it seems to do the trick.

We found loads of dead bees on the footpath a couple of weeks ago. Couldn't figure it out until a few days later some brambles growing over a wall on some waste land started dying off. I think someone (the council?) had sprayed the brambles, but being in flower, the bees had collected the pollen which was already poisoned. My poor children are a bit distraught about it

though DS1 stood on a bee in the garden and got stung, so he is less enamoured with bees than he was before.

[Traceyloveshoney]

Brown sugar gives them dysentery (diarrhoea) which can kill them. Great to see so many people trying to help bees, they really are great creatures. My (honey) bees were having a great time today, really busy out in the sun.

[LEMisdisappointed]

Managed to rescue a bee on the beach today, i noticed it on our baby wipes. We had melons so i put it on a bit of melon over on the breakwater - after a while it started eating and buzzed off. I like bees

Wasps can do one though

[DeathByTray]

Thank you for this thread. I had absolutely no idea that you could save a bee.

I thought they were just dying because their time was up

Happy to report lots of bees in my garden this year and I've not seen any poorly ones yet but now I'll know what to do.

[hiddenhome]

They also like the liquid from the top of jam.

[KirjavaTheCat]

Oh this should be on the front page. I can imagine people going out and about with a bit of tissue and a spray bottle of sugar water, like a little bee first aid kid! I'm gonna be on a bee-rescue mission now I know they can be saved.

[redwellybluewelly]

Right. Tomorrow starts the great plan of converting an old cd rack into a bee hotel. Been meaning to do it since last summer.

[fishandlilacs]

bee paramedic!

I usually take them outside and put them on a flower, I like to watch their amazing curly tongues.

Aren't the big bumbles you see the new queens from previous colonies? If so that means by saving one big bumbler, you may be helping to repopulate the bees for next year.

Bumble bee are called drumbledrones in old Cornish. Such a descriptive name.

[HouseAtreides]

Don't forget that other old English word for a fat bumble... A dumbledore :)

[LouiseSmith]

My DS has an obsession with bees at the moment, our local field is filled with them. I will give it a go.

[FruOla]

So. We've had the little Gu pots out with water since last night - I've filled them with fresh water today too. And we're keeping an eye out for 'sickly' bees.

DP thinks I'm completely mad, but has accepted that as the "MumScapers" (that's what he thinks we all are called?!) have said it's OK - then it's OK.

This morning he was out on 'Snail Patrol', came back inside and handed me a little piece of paper - about 3cm X 2cm - saying he'd found a little note in the back garden, which he handed to me - I was intrigued ....

.... it said "Thank you for water. Mr B (Buzzy for short)"

[cardamomginger]

Great idea - thank you! We have lots of bees where we are. All I've done with the knackered ones I've seen has been to move them so they don't get squashed. DD will LOVE helping them like this!

[Flobbadobs]

What a fabulous thread!
Will keep an eye out now I know what to do, we get loads of bees in our garden.
Dumbledores...

[Januarymadness]

I am glad my instinct not to give a toss about the nest in our loft is doing the world some good. I will leave them bee....

[FruOla]

BTW, anyone who has an entire 'nest' of bees - they might have escaped from their own hive. It's possible that bee-keepers in your area might have 'lost' their colony of bees. Keep an eye out for local apiarists who're trying to find their bees.

[digerd]

I've noticed my lawn is full of clover flowers this year. First it was daisies and now clover.
I remember one year in Germany, my german DH was very tidy and particular. with house and garden. The suddenly he said to me " There's a clover patch in the lawn at the back and I've mown round it as it's covered in bees. I'll mow it after the flowers have finished and the bees gone". Bless him.

[HouseAtreides]

"Keep an eye out for local apiarists who're trying to find their bees"
What a lovely mental picture I now have! :o

[SoupDragon]

I've always been slightly disappointed that apiarists don't look after apes.