Do you see any bees where you live?

Hello all.
While I noticed last year that honey bees in particular, and all "bees" in general were scarce last year, I am very concerned with the apparent lack of ANY bees in my yard so far this year. I am in a suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio. My neighborhood is not rural by any means, but I am 10+ miles north of the "concrete jungle" of downtown. There are several ponds and multi-acre patches of undeveloped land, both pasture and woods around me. Everything is green, the flowers and trees are blooming, and so is my yard full of clover. I am "prepper" and have a substantial vegetable garden in my back yard. I am completely organic and use no chemicals on my lawn or garden, hence a large percentage of my lawn is clover. It is a beautiful, partly sunny day, and the temperature is currently 84. I just walked my yard, and a substantial portion of my neighborhood, and did not see a single bee. I paid close attention to flower beds and patches of clover, and my neighbors fruit trees. Nothing. No honey bees. No sweat bees. No carpenter bees. No mason bees. No bees. I would like to hear from others, worldwide, reports of bees in their area. I am not wanting this thread to turn into a discussion of the causes of this phenomenon as there are already numerous threads on this subject. I.E. monsanto, cell phones, roundup, bt, and even smart meters. Just reply with your location, and weather or not you observe any bees in your area. Note: Make sure your observations are on a warm day as most bees will not be active if the temperature is below the mid 60s.

Date: 5/4/2012
Location: Mt.Healthy, Ohio
Temperature: 84
Conditions: Partly Sunny
Observation: 1/2 acre clover: Count - 0
Observation: Front yard flower beds of 50+ homes: Count - 0

Not sure if this helps you, but at my work there are already a lot of hornets/wasps. (not sure which)

Mansfield, MA


Date: March - April 2012
Location: Mansfield, MA
Temperature: 65 - 85 F
Conditions: Partly Sunny
Observation: Lot of hornet/wasps building nesting in and around our warehouse docks.

reply to post by mwc273


In PA I have had tons of wasps around my house / woods so far. I haven't seen any honeybees though.....

I have seen very few in comparison to previous years.

Norristown PA

Date: 5/4/2012
Location: Atlanta, GA
Temperature: 65- 88
Conditions: Partly Sunny
Observation: flower beds, sloped meadow and deciduous woods = 0 honey bees / TONS of carpenter bees.

Southern NH

I have 2 apple tree/bushes in front and there were literally 100s of bees going to town on them last week. I've never seen as many bees here as I did last week. No bee problems here.

Dead center of the U.S. Two bumble bees near my sage but other than that just wasp and one cicada hunter. The temp here fluctuates too much for a definite temp but for the past week from 67-89. I have seen smaller fly sized bees not sure what they are but only seen 3 or 4.

Originally posted by Chrisfishenstein
In PA I have had tons of wasps around my house / woods so far.

Same here. It's like an Invasion, i've never seen so many of them flying around. I already killed 8 of them in the past few days. Annoying little #ers .
Bees are fewer, i've seen a few around the flowers, at least they don't enter the house

I'm in Kentucky, and I've seen quite a few honeybees already this year. I would say about as many as any other given year. One thing I have noticed, and several others seem to as well, is that wasp, and especially red wasp are extremely abundant this year, and were active much earlier in the year than normal, probably due to such a mild winter here.

No honey bees, but MANY more fuzzy bumble bees so far this year then prior years.

Date: March - April 2012
Location: Cambridge, MA
Temperature: 65 - 85 F
Conditions: Partly Sunny
Observation: much more bumble bees than normal this year.

Note: was reading yesterday that honey bees are not indigenous to North America. they were shipped over from Egypt years ago. Article also said that local bees do more pollinating then honey bees do... and that crops survived for thousands of years before honey bees came to america ( now all honey bees coming to america are stopped at the border, frisked and groped by the TSA, and got so pissed off they refuse to be part of the Obamanation and went back home)

as seen in another post regarding the sweat bee. :

online.wsj.com... %26articleTabs%3Darticle

We have carpenter bees. They look like bumble bees but dig holes in wood and from what I have observed they don't fly far from the holes in which they hatch and they don't pollinate much and they live only about a week or so. So they don't seem of much use to farmers.

I see wasps now doing the job that honeybees once did. So as much as I hate them I leave them bee...

yes theres this re-occuring hive that keeps coming back(inside a broken grate). despite removal!

right next to my parking spot!

I had not thought much about it, but saw a few honey bees over the last weekend.

I did notice they were only a few in the clover in my yard, and they were fairly small.

NW Alabama

Funny you should ask this now.

Just 2 weeks ago, we had a swarm of bees that landed on a tree where I work. They were slowly dying off right in front of us. The one on the outside of the bunch on the tree were slowly dropping to the ground unable to fly. Some would walk around and others would try to fly only to buzz around in tight circles. This went on for about a week until finally they were all gone.

I have never seen anything like this and have no clue why or what was going on or causing it. I'm in the North San Diego county area.

Alas no bees, only carpenter bees and wasps.....

I have acreage with everything in bloom. No bees anywhere.....

Des

Bees aplnety here in Hawaii. Big black bumble bees, little yellow and black ones, paper wasps, all the usual denizens.

Though, speaking of bees and strangeness, I did notice one thing, maybe it's normal, maybe not, but I feel like I should mention it here....The last few times I've been out windsurfing I've seen 2 or 3 bees out over the ocean. Like, way out there, away from the beach. I usually go about a mile offshore, and several times now I've had bees flying right next to me. The winds constantly blow towards the beach (on this side of the island) so they didn't get blown out there, they were flying into 25 mph headwinds to get out over the water.

Possible explanations
(a)They are migrating between the islands
(b)They are disoriented and aren't supposed to be that far out over the water
(c)The bees I've seen are just the stupid ones that can't figure it out

Date: 5/4/2012
Location: Island of Oahu, Hawaii
Temperature: 79
Conditions: Paradise
Observation: Various flowering potted plants around my house - 5 -10 bees sighted per day
Observation: Approximately 1 mile mile offshore, over open ocean, 2-3 bees

But other than that, which I'm sure is perfectly normal, bees seem to be doing fine here. I always see them flying around my basil plant If I don't cut the little white flowers off.

Originally posted by kosmicjack
Date: 5/4/2012
Location: Atlanta, GA
Temperature: 65- 88
Conditions: Partly Sunny
Observation: flower beds, sloped meadow and deciduous woods = 0 honey bees / TONS of carpenter bees.

Exactly the same by me.....Atlanta, GA as well. See LOTS of carpenter bees but thinking on it I can't remember the last time I saw a honey bee.

Central Texas


There is a feral honeybee hive in my neighborhood and I have a bee hive in my backyard. The bees have been heavily working the sage. The girls are also bringing back lots of pollen of various shades. The feral hive has been going strong for at least 4 years.

I've also seen carpenter bees and bumble bees. The butterflies and moths have also been working the sage.

Bee tree across the road is humming away SE Michigan

check out this Citizen Scientist Bee Survey Results

Southeastern NY:

I haven't seen a honey bee in two years. Plenty of wasps, yellow jackets, and TONS of bumble bees, but no honey bees.