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Bumblebee vs. Honey Bee

33K views 53 replies 21 participants last post by  Acebird 
#1 ·
I have a patch of Anise Hyssop planted for my bees but every time that I would check on them I only found bumble bees, and my hives are only 300 feet away. This is a small patch so there would be 15-20 bumble bees and maybe 2-3 honey bees. My thoughts went back to the spring when my fruit trees were in bloom and I had noted that, where there were a lot of bumble bees on a tree there would not be many honey bees. So, I tried a little experiment. I got my needle nose pliers out and started catching the bumble bees (yes really), after I had finished with them within an hour or so my Anise Hyssops were full of honey bees by the hundreds. I have repeated this a number of times now with the same results, thin out the bumble bees and the honey bees will come pouring in. Has anyone done any similar experiments to see why their honey bees may not be visiting the flowers the way they should?
 
#31 ·
i'll take having the bumblebees take the little nectar they take compard to what the yellow jacket ,, wasp ,, hornet take ,,,, this week we had some bumblebees come land on us and they were sweet as our honey bees ,, the yellow jacket ,, wasp ,, hornet were just there to sting the >>>>>>> out of us ,,, the bumble and honeys were sharing the flowers ,,,, so if you dont like the bumblebees ,,, go get some yellow jacket ,, wasp ,, hornet nests and keep them as your pets ,,,, you must think bumblebees are the only thing taking your nectar.......
 
#33 ·
Even if one killed all the bumbles or somehow managed to screen them out, I'm curious how one can force the honey bees to visit only one type of flower in a small patch without having the vast majority of the foragers off bringing in more plentiful nectar from elsewhere, no matter how attractive the anise-hyssop is. Seems like one would have to have acres and acres of the stuff to reasonable label it a varietal rather than wildflower honey which is probably the best one can hope for with only a small patch.

Wayne
 
#38 ·
We try to force honeybees to pollinate crops they don't really like, like blueberries. Some species of bumbles may do it but they frequently cheat, slitting the side of the flower to gain access, which of course circumvents the flower's pollinating apparatus. We ignore one of the most valuable pollinators of blueberries.

In fact, we murder them wholesale.

Mosquitoes and blackflies.
 
#42 ·
I know rubber necking stops traffic but I always have to look before I speed off. This thread is much the same as much as I know I should move on I can't help myself. Good on ya Russa for sticking to your ill armed guns I give you credit for that but I cannot for the life of me think of a more ill thought out hypothesis. Now I can stop gawking. Maybe
 
#43 ·
Thanks for the reply Acebird, even with a test patch I could see where honey production could be greatly affected. In say this because of the bee counts went from one or two honey bees every several square feet to ten to fifteen per square foot, a huge difference. In my area at this time when Anise Hyssop would be in bloom it could easy be the number one nectar flow. Planting a acre is very labor and cost intensive, twenty thousand plants must be started in four inch pots with good medium, and taken care of, then twenty thousand holes must be dug (you see the point). Of all the Anise Hyssop seeds that I planted by hand in the field this year very few came up, of all the seeds from the same order I planted in pots none have been lost. I understand that there are a million ways and reasons that the bumblebees and the honey bees can not be separated on a larger scale but after all that, there must be one way it can happen, they are after all creatures of habit and instinct. I found your last statement a bit humorous, no beekeeper I know has any money from bee keeping, could be just coincidental.
 
#46 ·
http://www.motherearthliving.com/plant-profile/anise-hyssop.aspx
Anise hyssop is easily grown from seed, either by starting indoors as you would tomatoes or by sprinkling outside in spring or fall. Fall-planted seed will remain dormant and then sprout in the spring; this is the way mature plants sow their seed, after all. Your established anise hyssop will produce plenty of volunteer plants for you to share with friends or use to expand your planting. Fortunately, they’re extremely easy to transplant. Plantings can be increased by root division, too.
This plant is easy to care for. It will thrive in full sun in well-drained garden soil — good news for the dry-land gardener.
This appears to be a more northern plant. Being part of the mint family I can see where it would be easy up here to grow. It seems like you are trying to fight nature with your plantings and bees.
 
#53 ·
http://www.motherearthliving.com/plant-profile/anise-hyssop.aspx


This appears to be a more northern plant. Being part of the mint family I can see where it would be easy up here to grow. It seems like you are trying to fight nature with your plantings and bees.
It is a more northern plant and there reasons I chose it. In the clay soil here I did not have much luck with broadcast sowing, however the plants which were planted from pots are doing very well, average about three feet tall and loaded with blooms. I tried gibberellic acid @ fifty parts per million on some but it seemed to have a negative effect as those plants are less than two feet tall with less blooms. Now the reasons I went with it is, it has a very heavy nectar flow and I can time it to be in bloom when everything else is finished for the summer. I have also tried Sainfoin but here it will need to be planted on ridges to withstand the spring rains.
 
#54 ·
In the clay soil here I did not have much luck with broadcast sowing,
It can't be the clay soil. I grow a lot in clay soil. There is some science about how some seeds have to get triggered to germinate by going through winter. I am not sure if it is temperature or what. Maybe if you put them in the freezer prior to planting it would help. I don't know. I am only guessing.
 
#47 ·
>it is not my intent to kill off the bumblebees.
But that's exactly what you did. And killed off enough to void your flowers of bumble bees, possibly killing one of your local bumble bee colonies.

>As it turned out in my opinion the bumble bees were the problem
:scratch:

>Now how much money will I lose having to sell wildflower honey as opposed to premium Anise honey counting the volume of honey that may have been lost.
How much honey did a few bumble bees collect from a small patch of flowers that honey bees did not collect that would not have been used to raise honey bee brood?

>That will determine how much money can be invested in finding away to separate the bees
Who is going to invest in that? You?
Exactly much money are you going to spend to keep bumble bee off your flowers?

>Again thank you for being the one giving some benefit of the doubt.
Which bumble bees did you give the benefit of the doubt when you slaughtered them and their whole family? Was it the endangered species? Or just threatened one?

>even with a test patch I could see where honey production could be greatly affected.
Really how? You don't have anything to compare, you have no historical data, you don't have any test areas with and without bumbles, you don't have a control, you have no studies of any kind, nothing you have done is even close scientific.
Here's something for you to compare; some bumble bee populations are down 97% where are the bumper honey crop because of it.

Take it from every beekeeper that posted on this thread all seem to agree; "As others have said, different bees work different blooms at different times of the day." "honey bees working side by side with bumble bees" this is coming from many different beekeepers with years of beekeeping experience.

Where are your "opinion" coming from?
 
#48 ·
FlowerPlanter I can appreciate your interest and zeal however your link was to an article that was written about another article that was written about a case study. In that study this is what it had to say " Furthermore, causal factors leading to the alleged decline of bumble bee populations in North America remain speculative." It also stated that the honey bee is more important than the bumble bee. It seems that the authors of the first two articles only cherry picked what their readers wanted to hear.Thank you for the link even if it took a little time to trace down the actual scientific study. What was really funny to me is that the web site where the actual study is found "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America" is bookmarked on my favorites bar. I did pick up on something I want to try when they spoke about the bumble bee buzz, if I can get my hands on a high frequency sound generator. So pat yourself on the shoulder you have done something good even if you did not intend it that way.
 
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