Dearth [or something else?] is visibly affecting the Bumble bees

An area I that I often visit in Oklahoma County, a field that is normally covered with crown and beards and wild sunflowers, as well as a kind of course mint [punctata?] I notice that for the first time in 3 years, there are no bumble bees. Normally they would be all over that mint, the minute it opened up. And I recall that they are very territorial about it as well. But there were none. There were also no hornets or wasps on those plants either. I did see some little blue bees, leaf cutter bees, and a sunflower bee [svastra obliqua], but zero bumble bees.

I did note that the area appears to be taken over by fire ants. And I wonder if perhaps the combination of bad weather, lack of forage and invading ants, didn't squeeze them out of that area.

Normally the bees would be so thick on this patch of flowers that I will only use my zoom function to take pictures of bees that are not on the flowers directly by the road. I barely saw any bees going all the way back to the tree line.

Perhaps it isn't the weather, perhaps someone sprayed something.

Posted on July 24, 2011 02:06 AM by greenmother