Far too early

Posts

• wazza63 Posts: 74

  14 February

  Now happily took off yipee

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• Lizzie27 Posts: 12,494

  14 February

  That's good. We've seen several big bees out and about lately. Good job the weather here is quite mild.

  North East Somerset - Clay soil over limestone

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• Fire Posts: 19,096

  14 February edited 14 February

  Queens are out and about. It's normal. It's good to have some early blooms out so they can eat.
  

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• Palustris Posts: 4,307

  14 February

  Honey is not good for them, better to give sugar water.
  

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• ViewAhead Posts: 866

  14 February

  There's a whole load of buzzing going on around by fatsia flowers on sunny days, but they are too high up for me to identify the visitors.  

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• Busy-Lizzie Posts: 24,043

  14 February

  I was surprised that @Palustris said honey isn't good for them so I looked up. So much conflicting advice! Some articles say queen bees eat honey and others say they don't.

  Dordogne and Norfolk. Clay in Dordogne, sandy in Norfolk.

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• wazza63 Posts: 74

  14 February

  Palustris said:

  Honey is not good for them, better to give sugar water.
  

  Remembered.

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• CatDouch Posts: 488

  14 February edited 14 February

  At this time of year I quite regularly find tired, hungry queen bees … the advice I was given was to bring them inside to warm up and give them sugared water.  I normally dissolve sugar in some warm water and put that in a lid from a plastic milk bottle, let the bee crawl into a small cardboard box (I keep a light bulb box for this job) bring it inside and shut the bee in the box with the sugary water.  After a while you can hear the bee buzzing at which point I take it outside and place it near a flower, if you can find one.  I’ve helped lots of bees like this ☺️. 

  I have used honey but the bee got quite sticky and must have used up a lot of energy trying to clean herself.

  South Devon 

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• JennyJ Posts: 10,576

  14 February

  There was a big bumblebee out and about today buzzing around the spring flowers.
  

  Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
  

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• McRazz Posts: 440

  15 February

  I saw some fat bumbles flying in and out of a wooden church steeple over xmas!
  

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