Where are all the bees?
By Fleur
@Fleura (31557)
United Kingdom
April 28, 2025 9:51am CST
We are having a glorious few days just now and gardens and roadsides everywhere are filled with blossom, scenting the air.
But something is badly wrong.
Where are all the bees?
Last year and this year there has been a noticeable lack of insects around here. Normally you would expect flowers like this to be literally buzzing with activity, but these days I may see one if I’m lucky.
I don’t know whether this is the ‘insect apocalypse’ I have seen in scaremongering headlines, caused both directly (due to over-use of pesticides) and indirectly (as a result of climate change) by human activity, but if it is then we are right to be scared, we are destroying our world.
Of course insects have been around since long before humans, so as long as a few survive them once we have made such a mess that we cause our own extinction then no doubt the insects will bounce back and thrive as before. And serve us right.
But it would be much better for us if we could clean up our mess before we get to that stage!
All rights reserved. © Text and image copyright Fleur 2025.
9 people like this
10 responses
@Ineeddentures (647)
•
28 Apr
We made a patch of our garden a bee trap and boy has it paid dividends.
Bees aplenty. It's really great to see them and we should see more when my new wild raspberries start to flower.
No chemicals at all used, wild flowers and wild roses, brambles and raspberry bushes.
It's about as close to nature as it could be.
A small pond is my next project, should be interesting to see what the introduction of a few frogs does for the garden.
1 person likes this
@Fleura (31557)
• United Kingdom
29 Apr
We've never used any chemicals at all in the garden and it is full of all sorts of flowers with something available most of the year. There are bees and butterflies around, but just one or two here and there, not as it should be. None of us is in isolation, obviously we're all impacted by what goes on in the wider world.
1 person likes this
@Ineeddentures (647)
•
29 Apr
@Fleura
It might be that us living in a very rural area would see more bees.
It's.strange.though, where we are now on holiday, basically on a farm , I don't recall seeing a single bee.
1 person likes this
@Fleura (31557)
• United Kingdom
29 Apr
@Ineeddentures I noticed the same thing last year on a country walk, I think we saw two bees and one butterfly. This is really not normal.
1 person likes this
@DaddyEvil (146705)
• United States
28 Apr
We used to see honey bees and the forager bees on our flowers at the other house all the time but not at this house. Since we moved here, all we see are wasps and hornets.... We're both allergic to those.
Pretty always picks a flower or two off anything we need pollinated and rubs the flowers into the ones still on the plants. It's what she does with tomatoes and bell peppers when I'm growing them in pots on our front porch.
1 person likes this
There are numbers of honey bees around here, but they're basically farm animals, it's the wild ones I'm worried about.
@wolfgirl569 (115172)
• Marion, Ohio
28 Apr
We have some here but I would like to see more
1 person likes this
@LindaOHio (187306)
• United States
29 Apr
I think it's a combination of climate change and pesticides.
1 person likes this
