Thursday 23 April 2009

What is happening to the Bumble Bees?

There have been several articles about the problems bees are facing for example this one from the Guardian last year.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/jun/27/society.conservation1

There are more cases of empty hive disease but I was not concerned that there was a problem when all the Bumble Bees were buzzing around the Dandelions in the garden but then I started to notice bumble bees struggling.

They were on the ground crawling along the pathways as they sometimes do when they are cold and when they want to sun themselves to restore their energy. But these bees just sit there or crawl unhappily and often they end up stepped on or run over. So there does seem to be something going wrong as I have seen three bumble bees with these sysmptoms in the last week. I am wondering if anyoen else has noticed anything?