[ExI] bees again

ablainey at aol.com ablainey at aol.com
Tue Jan 1 23:47:00 UTC 2013


Ive BEEn (groan) keeping a eye on local numbers since you raised the bee issue a few years ago.
The main reason was that we have a large number of solitary bees living in our garden and I raised the question of such species increasing in number to fill the gap caused by hive collapse.
All I can say is that the numbers living outside have multiplied noticeably in our wall mortar, screw holes under the table, keyholes,.....in fact any small hole they can find in anything, anywhere. I was surprised to find about 20 little mud cocoons inside an electrical switchbox I put on the wall last year.

 Additionally I have been on the war path hacking down Rhododendrons (invasive species here) which has greatly reduced the flowers available to them. Its also been a terrible year for weather. So I was honestly expecting them to decline but far from it.
It would seem from my very limited observation that the numbers of solitaries is on the up. I wonder if that is being reflected elsewhere? tbh im also wondering where my bees are getting enough food from?

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: spike <spike66 at att.net>
To: 'ExI chat list' <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Tue, 1 Jan 2013 22:58
Subject: Re: [ExI] bees again



I sent this earlier today but it never went thru.  Trying again.  s
 

From: spike [mailto:spike66 at att.net] 
Sent: Tuesday, January 01, 2013 12:11 PM
To: 'ExI chat list'
Subject: bees again

 
Walking today I noticed a grouping of dead bees on the sidewalk, so I went home, returned with a clean Tupperware container, collected about fifty of them.  I noticed they were almost all in a feet-down configuration as opposed to on their sides or feet-up.  It wasn’t particularly cold last night, with a minimum of about 5C, or low 40s F, clear skies.  All stingers were intact, no signs of trauma on the bees.  Before I even made it all the way back home, I was surprised to see one bee was alive and apparently well, flying about inside the container.  Now, about half an hour after I collected the lifeless bees, several of them (about eight) appear healthy, with another several demonstrating some sign of life, such as a moving leg.  
 
I don’t know what to make of it.  I have never seen a bunch of bees just land in random patterns on the sidewalk like that and go into a deathlike dormancy.  I was thinking of going up to Stanford, see if their entomologists had some suggestions, or go over to Lockheed, put them in our chemical spectral analyzer, see if we could detect neonicotinoids or something.  Had these bees landed in the grass nearby, no one would have ever observed them.  They would be just the colony which mysteriously disappeared.
 
If anyone knows anyone who is interested in this, a local university or something, I am willing to mail the bees to them.  Open to suggestion.
 
spike

 
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