Where have the bee’s gone?

[Gingerbeerfear]

I live very rurally and my house back on to hundreds of acres of woodland and small pockets of grazing land. I’ve tried to keep my garden as bee friendly as possible lots of flowers and water if needed. No pesticides of any sort.

About 2 weeks ago the garden was alive with bees busy in the morning and in the evening (possibly all day but I’m at work!) Not seen one bee in over a week. Is it the heat? Lots of agriculture here they are currently baling straw.

Anything I can do to entice them back, but worried as miss their bumbling ☹️.

Hopefully it's because they've found forage some where else. If there's a really abundant source of nectar like blackberry flowers within a good distance of the hive they will be working that flow.

That’s a good point. There are loads of bramble flowers so they might have moved off to the woods to enjoy those. Thank you, never though of that.

Some species of bumblebee may have already completed their cycle so instead of lots of worker bees you’ll see just the odd queen dispersing.

I'd recommend putting up some bee houses too - we get mason bees & leaf cutter bees. The masons have finished, but the leaf cutters are in full flight & nest making atm.

It’s hot, the honey bees will be fanning their hives.

i've been wondering where all the butterflies are. we have several budleas in our garden which are normally covered but barley seen one.

All the bees are on my neighbours lavender bushes. Went out last night and stood for ages just watching them humming away. Happy bees!

leave out shallow water with the odd stone in it that they can land on to drink

Yes our lavender is covered in bees, but barely anything on our buddleia.

I would say the same about wasps, I've seen one so far this year.

Wasps are important pollinators and prey on all sorts of 'pests' in the garden, before anyone starts doing them down.

My lavender is covered in them

I gave an exhausted bee a sip of sugar water today. I never realised how long their tongues are! It had a good drink then bumbled off. I love bees 😊

They’re all at my house on my lavender. Don’t worry OP, they’ve probably found a better offer, i’m sure they’ll come back when they want to.

They’re all at my house on my lavender. Don’t worry OP, they’ve probably found a better offer, i’m sure they’ll come back when they want to.

They're at mine loving my lavender, sometimes I can't see the flowers for the bees it's so relaxing watching and listening to them. I'll tell them to come and visit you again

I think the buddleia flowers have to 'ripen' before the bees are interested.

I walked past a lime tree a couple of weeks ago and it was literally in a haze of bees and smelt gorgeous. But I must admit I think there are fewer bees again this year that the previous two (NW).