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Talkback: Bumblebee rescue

optimaoptima Posts: 4
Wish I had seen this earlier, I found a small bumblebee in the house the other day on the window blinds so I picked it up and took it outside into the garden. If I had known about the sugar solution I would have made some up, I do hope it was alright after I let it go.
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  • ClaringtonClarington Posts: 4,949
    Gosh what a simple solution that could help a bee no end!
  • a sad end to the first bee that arrived in our garden yesterday sadly it did a fly past my dog and he got it in mid-flight and killed it I lost count how many

    bees he kills each year I just cant stop him as it is

    not very nice to see
  • Clarington wrote (see)
    Gosh what a simple solution that could help a bee no end!

    And that's a joke too Clari!!! image

    Think I'm going to make up a little bit of sugar solution and keep it in a jamjar in the pantry so it's there ready, just in caseimage


    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • ClaringtonClarington Posts: 4,949

    Make sure you keep the jar firmly sealed Dove - you don't want to be actively attracting the bees and wasps into your pantry!

  • Wow, that's amazing, good to know.

  • Forester2Forester2 Posts: 1,477

    Or worse Dove - an army of ants.

  • That is fantastic to hear, I never knew one could save bees in this way!



    Fortunately I have not seen one dead bee yet this year which gives me lots of hope, every year about this time I find many struggling. This year I went to the garden and loads of bumble bees were buzzing around the primroses. So I bought I put more primrose in ;)
  • hi i found a bumble bee lying on the grass in the park yesterday, i picked it up and put it onto some flowers, it appeared to improve and flew off! i read somewhere that gardens should have somewhere for bees to take a drink. i always have little pots of water dotted around the place. 

  • We get many bumblebees in our conservatory, and they exhaust themselves 'bumbling' around (no pun intended), trying to get out. We always rescue them, but I have used a little of whatever jam we have in the fridge. My boys now happily get a little on their fingers now and rescue them alone. They wait until the bee has nearly had it's fill, then take it to the nearest nectar-rich flower. It's great to see them get back to work, or fly home.

    At the moment, though, we have no nearby flowers, so I'm unsure about releasing any I find. Not that I've seen any yet, but we have fed and released a couple of early tortoiseshell butterflies from the garage.

    image

     

    image

     Sorry the pics aren't too clear, but this was my son with a bb last summer.

    We had nests under our shed and in the fruit cage last year. Lovely to have them buzzing around your head, checking you out while you work. Such beautiful creatures, and never a sting between us. They got used to us quite quickly, and seemed to know that we would not hurt them, although I will have to be extra careful when I go in to weed, prune and mulch later on. I wouldn't want to damage a hibernating queen.

  • Hi kate

    More commonly than not it is actually a low supply of pollen that causes a poor number of brood in the spring, which later causes hive collapse later in the year. It is rather uncommon for bees not to return from foraging as bee are highly social they communicate the distance and direction to other foraging bees in the hive and show them the pollen/nectar bounty to be had in the location.

    This way the hive travels to the most efficient source of food in the area. If you really want to help your local bees I would suggest

    1) Plant bee friendly plant species in your garden (more info here) - Snowdrops and blue bells are springs lifesavers for bees

    2) consider if you have the space to home some British non commercial bees. set up one of these solitary bee hives in your garden.

    Matt Day : Livingwithbirds.com

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