Normally on a beautiful sunny day like this my garden - very bee-friendly - would be buzzing with bumbles and other bees. But haven't seen a single one, despite being out most of the time. The comfrey is usually a favourite and carder bumblebees usually nest somewhere near, but not a single one have I seen. I suppose the only good thing re insects is that the cabbage whites are also very few in numbers - green-veined whites evident in the woods and sometimes never too sure whether it is them in the garden.

Sorry to hear about this Colin.

We have good numbers round here. Plus a Mason Bee nest in the garden and an impromptu nest of medium-sized bumbles in the roof of our porch (scares the bejesus out the delivery drivers!)

Colin, both Colins: I am seriously worried about our insects here. We, too, have a very bee-friendly garden (at the moment there are lots of field scabious flowering, a long rose hedge with single roses, red valerian, a large patch of flowering thyme, heliotrope, verbena bonariensis etc etc) - but very, very few bees or any other insects. On the nature reserve adjoining our garden, we normally have lots of common blue butterflies, large and small skippers, small heath at this time of the year, but all we have seen the last two days (the first warm and sunny days for yonks) is one red admiral, one speckled wood, one large skipper and about eight ringlets.

No doubt, this also explains the dearth of hirundines and bats this year.

Plenty of bees in our garden, I'm happy to say. Only seen a couple of cabbage whites though (thankyou god - long may it continue) and a couple of gorgeous brown/amber butterflies.

Unfortunately, the greenflies are also out enmasse but then so are the likes of the hoverflies. Real mixed bag.

VPM
x

P.S. Still gonna be out with the paint brush around my squashes come the morning

I have only seen 1 speckled wood butterfly the whole year. Normally the bottom of my garden has plenty.

Quite a lot of bumble bees around here, but no honey bees

Butterflies are very scarce as well. None on the Buddleias in the garden or on the allotment.

Saw lots of Meadow Browns in the fields at Tenterden yesterday, which was nice Also a couple of Comma butterflies.

The only thing attracting bees in my garden this year is the poppies. They are just ignoring everything else and with the poppies finishing will have to see if they move on to something else or just move on.

Westi

It's looking very worrying all across the insect range. Bees: see one bumblebee about once a week; no butterflies apart from the odd white; no hover flies at all; not seen a ladybird since April; not even any house flies; a couple of wasps spotted. But at least there are no aphids at all either.

Apparently nicotinoids can have a very detrimental effect on bee populations
plus the weather has also not helped,

http://www.farminguk.com/news/Bees-kill ... 10986.html

http://www.bijensterfte.nl/en/node/62

A good mix of bees in my garden though not quite as numerous as last year.

No nicotinoids around here that I know of. But 2 enormous swarms at the National Botanic Garden of Wales - grrr! they've stolen all my bees. But seriously, my situation is much like Alan's though flies and hover-flies are evident. I just hope the runners are self-pollinating as they are now staggering up the poles.

We seem to have small numbers of most insects except butterflies - only a few whites and 2 peacocks seen so far. Not many aphids except blackfly on the broad beans but quite a lot of ladybirds, though some of them are harlequins I think, brown legs - is that right? However, the lime trees around here, and there are lots, have been loud with bees on the gorgeous smelling flowers

Sorry to hear this Alan

In our back garden and conservatory, we have had a steady supply of hoverflies and aphids. Because of the latter, I gathered some Ladybird larvae to bring in and put on our Chillies. There's a lane near out house that usually has a good line of nettles growing along it. These generally get well populated by the ladybirds. I'd just managed to gather around 20 Ladybird larvae at the start of July when the council decided to come and strim the nettles to the ground

This weekend I saw my first grasshopper at the allotment.
We are just starting to see a few cabbage whites, but they have been noticeable by their absence up till now.

We've had bumble bees take over a blue tit nest box this year but sadly when we recently returned from a holiday abroad, found the box sadly deserted. I know it poured with rain almost non stop during our absence and wonder whether the bees simply deserted for a dryer home. The inside of the box when I checked it was squenching with a soggy honeycombe type substance. I suspect the rain may have damaged many colonies with long term adverse effects.

A useful weatherproof bee house - if you have an old clay flowerpot with a v chip out of it, I make a polystyrene base from a sheet that comes as packing, a tile on top to cover the hole a bit of nesting material leaving room for their store, four or five bumbles on the nasturtium today and saw about seven different butterflies, plus some honey bees and hoverflies.and there was half a doz slim red winged insects partaking of the blossom on my leaf celery, no idea what they were, have seen a couple of dragonflies but not so many this year.

With a bit of warmer, drier weather the bees are back in some numbers