My numbers have been about normal, as far as I can tell, considering this is only my second summer in this house. This past spring, two Japanese holly bushes of mine had so many honey bees on them I had to avoid them, lest I got stung. When I lived in the country, the yaupon hollies always swarmed with bees, a southern holly very similar to Japanese holly. These two bushes make very small, insignificant looking flowers, but the bees sure love them! If you have a place for one of these, or some other holly, maybe that would draw more bees to your gardens.

Sherry

For the past two years, I have had a lot more bees in my garden. I kind of went through the book, I think it was called “Feed the bees” and added the plants it recommended. Lots of bumblebees on the bee balms and anise hyssop, the smaller bumblebees love the nodding onions. The small bees love the mountain mints. After the fruit trees are done flowering, I am not seeing too many of the honey bees.

You have the plants though and have had a lot of bees before. So something else might be going on. Hope someone from your area will chime in.

Here in SW Texas I've had way fewer honey bees or other bees, and few butterflies for the past 6 or 7 years and I don't know why, I'm inside the city limits, but there's a lot of unkempt wild green fields around with wild flowers and ponds, and also large old oak trees that wild bees could use to build hives. The wild spaces are due to a 140 acre Boy Scout camp near by, a dry creek and other factors. There are coyotes, deer, raccoons and other wildlife, but few bees, no lightning bugs and very few butterflies. This year I've had hardly any paper wasps show up. It's rather alarming.

We have the same problem here, south of Dallas. I have some beautiful squash plants and have not gotten 1 squash and no bees.

Same here; and others have also commented on it in my area. Also hardly any paper wasps; total absence of carpenter bees (they usually drill holes in my wood porch eaves). In the last week I have noticed a few (honey?) bees or something similar.

I am noticing the same thing here in Indianapolis. I have oodles and oodles of honeybee and butterfly plants, but I can count the honeybees I've seen in one hand, and the butterflies are not as prolific as normal, either. As someone stated above, my pumpkin harvest will be pathetic!

St. Louis checking in:

• Honey bee numbers are definitely down
• Bumblebees are plentiful
• Very very few fireflies
• A lot of Monarchs
• Very few Black Swallowtails - usually plentiful in my yard