Personally experience pooled together is as good as it gets Jennifer!
I had a dramatic encounter with my first bee nest a couple of years back when a Queen made her nest in an unused border where I had piled a load of leaves.
I remember her surveying the spot one sunny February day but thought nothing more about it until I cleared the pile of leaves.
I left the nest alone assuming it was a solitary but then I saw three or more and so I read that solitary bees can share the same hole, so I thought aw that's nice, but soon enough there was a stream of bees back and forth and we realised it was a proper nest.
The drama occurred over a period of time when a presumed fox raided the nest twice (the bees rebuilt it) and on another occasion we found a great disturbance at the nest and the queen crawling away wingless. She had obviously been usurped and not too many weeks after that the nest died out, so we can only assume that the cuckoo bee took over by pretending to be a worker for a few days before it attacks the queen. It then lays its own eggs which are treated to the best care by the nest but unfortunately Cuckoo bees don't collect pollen so the nest has a lifespan of 40 days tops, when all the original bees die off and there is no-one left in attendance.
We dug the nest up at the end of the year and discovered a grapefruit sized knitted construction of mostly fluff and debris that puts China's dense population issues to shame!
Wow - that's quite a bee saga Wintersong, and a wonderful photograph! I'm also amazed at some of the other facts here. I have a lot to learn about bees.
We have lots of bees round our blue flowers, but have no idea where they live. We have a bee box but have only ever had spiders and earwigs in it , despite siting it out of direct sunshine/driving rain, and near good bee flowers. The instructions said to put bits of mouse nest in it because bees are attracted to that. However, as we don't encourage mice, we don't have access to mouse nest.
That's interesting that you can have a bee nest. Maybe that's what we have as there were several coming and going. I'll make sure to guard it carefully.
Thanks for letting me know that people are on here as volunteers. I only wondered, as I need to find a job working from home when my son goes to school, and I wondered if there was a such a thing as a job answering plant questions on forums.
In answer to Jennifer, it is all to do with interest. You see something happening in the garden and go and find out from books, real experts or these days the Interweb thingy, what it is.
Two years ago we had a bee colony living in the roof space. There is only a couple of inches between the ceiling and the roof tiles (just enough to be filled with insulation and the plasterboard inside is the insulating type) and the bess managed to get in between the tiles. Now we like having bees around the garden, but when they are nesting just above your head it is a bit more of a problem. When it was hot they fanned their wings to cool it off and the noise was tremendous. If you banged on the ceiling the buzzing was very loud and took ages to go down. We had to sleep with ear plugs in, as the noise they made went on until dark and started again at first light.
We were very glad when winter came and they died off,as they do. Also rather pleased that they were not honey bees. We did have visions of honey dripping through the plaster at one stage. Nice thing is that they do not return to the same place in the future. Good fruit set in the garden that year.
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Personally experience pooled together is as good as it gets Jennifer!
I had a dramatic encounter with my first bee nest a couple of years back when a Queen made her nest in an unused border where I had piled a load of leaves.
I remember her surveying the spot one sunny February day but thought nothing more about it until I cleared the pile of leaves.
I left the nest alone assuming it was a solitary but then I saw three or more and so I read that solitary bees can share the same hole, so I thought aw that's nice, but soon enough there was a stream of bees back and forth and we realised it was a proper nest.
The drama occurred over a period of time when a presumed fox raided the nest twice (the bees rebuilt it) and on another occasion we found a great disturbance at the nest and the queen crawling away wingless. She had obviously been usurped and not too many weeks after that the nest died out, so we can only assume that the cuckoo bee took over by pretending to be a worker for a few days before it attacks the queen. It then lays its own eggs which are treated to the best care by the nest but unfortunately Cuckoo bees don't collect pollen so the nest has a lifespan of 40 days tops, when all the original bees die off and there is no-one left in attendance.
We dug the nest up at the end of the year and discovered a grapefruit sized knitted construction of mostly fluff and debris that puts China's dense population issues to shame!
The queen is dead, long live the Queen!
Wow - that's quite a bee saga Wintersong, and a wonderful photograph! I'm also amazed at some of the other facts here. I have a lot to learn about bees.
We have lots of bees round our blue flowers, but have no idea where they live. We have a bee box but have only ever had spiders and earwigs in it
, despite siting it out of direct sunshine/driving rain, and near good bee flowers. The instructions said to put bits of mouse nest in it because bees are attracted to that. However, as we don't encourage mice, we don't have access to mouse nest.
That's interesting that you can have a bee nest. Maybe that's what we have as there were several coming and going. I'll make sure to guard it carefully.
Thanks for letting me know that people are on here as volunteers. I only wondered, as I need to find a job working from home when my son goes to school, and I wondered if there was a such a thing as a job answering plant questions on forums.
Ta!
Jen
In answer to Jennifer, it is all to do with interest. You see something happening in the garden and go and find out from books, real experts or these days the Interweb thingy, what it is.
Two years ago we had a bee colony living in the roof space. There is only a couple of inches between the ceiling and the roof tiles (just enough to be filled with insulation and the plasterboard inside is the insulating type) and the bess managed to get in between the tiles. Now we like having bees around the garden, but when they are nesting just above your head it is a bit more of a problem. When it was hot they fanned their wings to cool it off and the noise was tremendous. If you banged on the ceiling the buzzing was very loud and took ages to go down. We had to sleep with ear plugs in, as the noise they made went on until dark and started again at first light.
We were very glad when winter came and they died off,as they do. Also rather pleased that they were not honey bees. We did have visions of honey dripping through the plaster at one stage. Nice thing is that they do not return to the same place in the future. Good fruit set in the garden that year.
Hi Berghill,
Thanks, yes I do understand. Thanks for the bee info. Very interesting.
J