Bees dying!

[bobstersmum]

I keep finding big fluffy perfect looking bumble bees dead on my grass, we do not use weedkiller of any sort and our garden is full of flowers, trees, clover, daisies, buttercups etc, can anyone tell me why this is happening, I have never noticed this before!

They may be males who have fulfilled their purpose by mating. This weather, I should imagine, has brought on a bit of a bumble bee orgy!

Or it may be something more sinister.

Have you brought in new plants from a garden centre? Some centres still use insecticide even on plants labelled bee friendly. Most chains have now resisted.

Also is there a water source? Put out a shallow bowl of water with stones in, if not.

The only plants I bought new this year were from the local market but they were planted a month ago. We have a children's water play table that is always full with fresh clean water so would assume they'd have a little dip in that? I usually cut the grass every week in summer but have left it over two weeks at a time this year because we have enjoyed the colourful meadow type that it has turned into, and the bees seemingly love it too! Until now..

Here's an article from last October about various studies finding all kinds of nasties in garden centre plants.

www.gardenorganic.org.uk/news/how-safe-are-garden-centre-plants

Trouble with market sellers is you've even less idea than garden centres where the plants come from and What's been put on them. And insecticides stay around for years. They are still finding STD in beeswax even though It's been banned for decades.

Best bet is to stick to British grown plants, or grow from seed.

But bumbles have a 1km range so the chances are it's not your plants. They do only live a few weeks (apart from queens).

DDT not STD!

I've just seen an article actually about something like this....
The article said that it's becoming more common now for bees to go into a sort of sleep mode.... and if you come across them, carefully get them to sugar water as this can 'resurrect' them.

Or they could just be dead.... 😔