I'm quite concerned as I've only seen two bumblebees so far this spring and both were dead/dying... Normally they are all over our cherry tree blossoms and on the other early blooming plants in the yard, but so far this year nothing. Anyone else in Vancouver seen any bumble action yet this year?
I haven't noticed any either so far. I usually see lots of them when my blueberry bushes are blooming, but they're not blooming yet.
At this time of year only the queen bumblebees are about...they overwinter, and start new colonies in the spring. All bumblebee colonies die out completely over winter, except for the year's crop of new queens, which are raised at the end of the summer. The queens are just now waking up and making their new colonies, and bumblebee colonies are small, so it takes a while for them to build up. All that said, insect declines around the world continue. You can help by not using garden chemicals (pesticides, fungicides etc), creating bumblebee habitat (they love old bird houses to nest in, up in trees), and planting season long forage for them (bumblebees have long tongues and specialize in flowers with deep nectaries...they love catmint (the perennial, not the annual catmint), lavenders of all kinds, borage, flowering herbs of all kinds, and white flowering Calamintha (var. White Cloud) is a gigantic hit with all pollinators, and blooms pretty much all season long! https://herewebee.wordpress.com/2023/09/18/and-the-winner-is/
Funny, I just helped a bumblebee out of my kitchen today. Don't know, how she got in. I've seen several of them outdoors this spring.
Thanks for the great info Western Wilson - rest assured no garden chemicals used at our place, and I have been trying to plant more things so that something is almost always in bloom in the yard throughout the year to help the bees and overwintering hummingbirds, but I didn't know what could be done to provide more habitat. Appreciate the response!
The queen bumblebees, late in the summer will shelter underground as well, so I have heard of providing habitat for them by partially/mostly burying small pots in the ground with entry holes as a possible nesting/overwintering site. But really the big need they have is forage...have you read Dave Goulson's "A Sting in the Tale"? Lovely info on bumblebees, who prefer to search out big patches of all one species of preferred flower to forage efficiently.
