Bees on Acacia Tree Blossoms?

[Troy]

I saw an acacia tree in bloom today. It was a most impressive sight.

In two minutes of looking, I saw at least 4 different species of bees on them. Mostly Bumble Bees and Carpenter bees.

There were like 3-5 bees on each blossom, and what looked like millions of blossoms on the tree. I've never seen so many bees in one place, but not one honey bee.

Has anyone seen honey bees working acacia?

What I saw looked a lot like this.....

http://www.ecoterralandscape.com/topic/051707dt.htm

[pcelar]

What I saw looked a lot like this.....
Like what?
There is not a single tree on this link.

[Troy]

OK, I got the link wrong......

...then I went looking for another pic and found that acacia's bloom in calif. in Feb.

The tree I saw is in bloom in Aug in Florida. Now I am wondering just what it is that I saw. It can't be the same tree can it? Someone once told me these were acacia, but maybe they were wrong too.

I will go take a picture on my way home tonight, and post it later.

[odfrank]

Acacia is a name like myrtle, Mock Orange, mimosa, periwinkle.... they mean a different plant to different people. You can only properly discuss plants by their botanical name. Acacia baileyana attracts no bees where they are lots of plants in bloom, but hundreds of bees where there is nothing in bloom. It looks like this:

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&hs=DdF&resnum=0&q=acacia%20baileyana&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi


There are many acacias.

[odfrank]

Another common acacia in my area. little interest to bees. 700 kinds in Australia alone.