As temperature drops, most of pollinators are gone, except the honeybees. With our loquat trees blooming with strong fragrance, honeybees are swarming around.

There must be hundreds of them having a feast

A honeybee on Mexican sage

Honeybee on Mystic Spires Blue salvia

Not a pollinator, but trying to be one 😊

forever, the honeybees stay active because many survive the winter in a "cluster" that stays warm. Even on a mild-enough winter day they fly out of the hive performing cleaning duties (removing waste), and then can return to a warm cluster.

beng, thanks for educating on honeybee behavior. I did not know that. I thought in winter they have to rely on the food the saved and reserved for the cold season. That also reminds me of seeing huge amount of honeybees on warm February days foraging on the wintersweet blooms, and on the blue berry flowers later.

Well, once again the forecast was off. Instead of 26F this morning it was 32F. Everything is still growing. Tonight is supposed to be colder...we'll see.

forever, they do in fact rely on their stored honey -- there's no flowers in winter. The cluster will form (with the queen in the center) and reside over a honey-filled area in the hive and move gradually across new honey areas as they deplete an area. Winter activity is house-cleaning as built-up bee-poop and dead bodies can spoil honey and/or cause bacteria/fungus growth.

Thanks again beng. So honeybees remain active in the winter, staying in cozy clusters, relying on stored food, occasionally getting out to do some cleaning. Maybe taking some snacks if there is some. Sounds like a nice healthy life, good fellows🐝🐝🐝

The temperature here yesterday afternoon soared to a new record high for December 9th (63 in Detroit, 59 at my location), and it was entertaining to watch various flies jockeying for position on the few remaining Nanking chrysanthemum flowers. Its flowers (as well as the flies apparently) are quite resistant to low temperatures - it dropped to 19 degrees overnight twice in the last 2 weeks. I did not see any honey bees out, however. It sounds like the related Ajania (C. pacifica) mentioned in a couple threads on the Perennials forum is also very tolerant of cold temperatures and a good plant for late season pollinators.

not a pollinator but i was surprised to see a large grasshopper this morning. caught it, squished it's head, & put it in my meal worm feeder. saw my resident mockingbird enjoying his large meal an hour later. he thanked me by pooping on my tractor seat.

Happy New Year! A final posting for 2023. For those who may be yearning for an escape from the colder weather, a visit to a butterfly house can be an instant cure for the winter blues. These longwing beauties were easily approached at the Judy Istock Butterfly Haven in Chicago. Their greenhouse was home to quite a few other butterfly species as well (plus some interesting birds). I believe the species below are: False Zebra Longwing, Common Postman, and Sara Longwing. Not sure on the last one.

Happy New Year!

Great thread. Wonderful pictures, what a great idea for a winter garden-related excursion. I am looking forward to the winter garden shows for a similar winter lift.

i got a call from the st louis police this morning. i'm on so many bee list i do not know how i got on them all. a tree fell on a parked car & had a bee hive in it. i arrived chain saw in tow & proceeded to retrieve the hive. i cannot explain why but most times when i open a tree or a wall to get to a hive the bees are not concerned with what i'm doing. that was the case this morning. i worked these bees wearing only a veil & was only stung once. i did locate & hive the queen. when dealing with a feral hive i take empty frames along. i cut any usable comb with brood ( eggs/larva ) to fit into the frames & hold it in place with rubber bands. since this hives just lost all of their stored honey i'll have to feed them heavily until spring. because of the time of the year they have a 35% chance of surviving.

My first pollinators of the year are out and about!

Honeybees have the advantage that they don't hibernate, they cluster together to maintain warmth, so can immediately fly out on a warm-enough day, even in the winter.

indianagardengirl, great photo – thanks for posting it. Today (3/8) was cool and rainy here, but it was warm and sunny yesterday afternoon when I noticed several honey bees visiting Cornus mas (even though the flowers had barely opened).

With the record setting warmth this winter (including an all-time record high for February in Detroit of 73F), pollinator season began much earlier than expected – this fly found some open witch-hazel flowers on Feb 9th (by far the earliest my witch-hazel has ever begun flowering).

Observed this hover fly visiting the witch-hazel on the day of record warmth (2/27). I think it is probably in the genus Eupeodes, which as a group are sometimes called “aphideater flies”.

I didn’t realize that Honeybees do not hibernate and can venture out on a warm day in winter. Makes me wonder if I have any honeybees around here, because I never see one in the winter. I also don’t have anything blooming. My hellebores are just showing unopened flower buds. Snowdrops have been open for maybe a couple of weeks off and on. They close up when it gets too cold. Yesterday I saw a daffodil open and that is really early for me. But no pollinators. Maybe I just haven’t been out in the garden enough, but really there is very little for a pollinator right now.

Inianagardengirl, that is a nice photo of a hellebore flower with your bee visiting it. Very pretty Hellebore too!

Dave, see, you have plants that flower early - the Cornus mas and the witch hazel. How do you like the Cornus mas?

The weather is scary, 73F in Detroit in February? Crazy. Here I seem to be just about on time with flowering. I can see crocus blooming mid March some years and it looks like mine are just opening in some areas and just showing foliage in others. The snowdrops were a little early, the Hellebores can sometimes start now, but sometimes don’t bloom until April.

How do you like the Cornus mas? Cornel dogwood is not only an outstanding plant for early season pollinators, but it also makes a fine ornamental and is quite adaptable. It was sunny and warm again today (71F in Detroit), and though the cornels I saw were still shy of full bloom, there were plenty of visitors - mostly honey bees and flies, but a few others as well. This was one I observed today; with its upright branching habit I believe it's probably 'Golden Glory'

Thanks for the pics Dave, I kinda have wanted a Cornus mas, but pretty much out of room now. Spicebush sorta emulates it w/its very early, massed yellow flowers, but not as effectively.

Count me as a vote for Cornus mas AND Cornus officinalis. I also have been advocating for the more memorable and pleasant common name Cherry Dogwood. Anybody ever looked into what a Cornel is?

Tough as all get out, these species now number more than a dozen taxa in the Viburnum Valley trialing landscape. I'll post a list and some pics soon.

With the warm weather bees have come! They are super excited and restless. very hard to take pictures

Happying buzzing🐝

Dave, that is a great photo of your Cornus mas.

I'm trying to develop a hedgerow along one side of my small property. I'd like to keep it neat and attractive and ornamental but provide habitat for birds and beneficial insects and be a good screen. Years ago I tried a number of varieties of Viburnum and didn't have good luck with any of them. I don't have one left on my property. I did have a Viburnum carlesii which I LOVED because of the fragrance, and that lasted quite awhile. I will probably add another one.

I do have a grey dogwood that is carefree and vigorous and healthy with no problems what so ever and it's native. It isn't as ornamental as I'd like, so I'd like to try for at least a few shrubs that are a little bit flashier. I'd also like to have continuous bloom for 3 seasons maybe with berries in the winter and some variegation and different shades of green. So I was thinking of a Cornus mas as one shrub to add. Maybe I'm trying to do too much. lol

Actually, I went looking for a photo of that Gray Dogwood and last year was a banner year for it! This is the best it's ever looked and it does look pretty good. It does spread and the robins strip the white berries pretty quickly. This is across the yard from the area I'm working on.

And my growing conditions are not that great. Good loamy clay, but a lot of neighboring mature tree roots to contend with and only part sun.

First butterfly of the year in our garden

For a minute, I thought that was a big turkey flying high above your garden! lol Isn't it early for butterflies? I thought they needed warmth?

Sleepy bees at the end of the season.

@prairiemoon2 z6b MA, it 🦋certainly is early. We had 70’s a couple days ago. A lot of plants bloom earlier this year. My daughter took this picture while I struggled taking one for the bees😼

forever_a_newbie, that's a great shot of the swallowtail butterfly, I believe it is the dark phase of the female tiger swallowtail. I've only seen a cabbage white so far this year, but there were a few sightings of mourning cloaks in the area on the warmest days earlier this month. Much too cold currently for any butterfly or pollinator activity.

Looks like there's bad news concerning the overwintering monarch population in Mexico (down 59% from last year): Monarch Population Status from Monarch Watch

"the size of the eastern monarch butterfly population that overwinters in Mexico is the second smallest on record. The numbers are so low that few monarchs will be seen this coming summer in many parts of the U.S. and Canada"

@arbordave (SE MI), thanks!

It is sad we will not see many monarch butterfliers this year. Last year the number was already down from 2 years ago.

Bee on the dianthus blooms

4-5-24:

I had this little guy visit me at my bench when I was working out in the yard today.

BillMN, any idea why that bee was attracted to the plastic bag?

This honey bee was visiting willow catkins in the wet meadow across the road (4/6/24)

An unknown fly species was also crawling through the willow catkins

Spicebush flowers are starting to open in the backyard. Another unidentified fly

what had the bag been used for? some odor or maybe the color. bees can be puzzling in their ways. i've kept bees for 16 years this go around & for 5 years back in the 70s & they still throw me a curve now & again.

magnesium sulphate and the bag had a twist tie on it.

He hung around for a good 10 minutes or so.

Could've been the bright blue in the intense sun but idk.

A surprise visitor made an appearance on the willow catkins late this afternoon (4/6/24). Temp around 52F at the time

Butterflies so early? Is that a willow tree, or some kind of shrub?

Dave, what zone are you in? I am in z6b and the spicebush is not ready to open yet.

I say, the willow catkins flowers are beautiful!

But the spicebush blooms almost look like wintersweet. Are they fragrant?

prairiemoon2, My location is z6a. Those are native pussy willows (Salix discolor), fairly common in wet areas around here. The male flowers have attractive yellow stamens visited by early season bees - as well as the occasional butterfly (I saw another Red Admiral this afternoon, but too high up for a photo). It was sunny and warmer today (high 68F), and there was plenty of bee activity (4/8/24)

forever_a_newbie, spicebush flowers are supposed to be fragrant, but I haven't noticed much fragrance on my plants. The temp dipped to 27F early yesterday morning, which appears to have damaged the more exposed flowers. I noticed an ant crawling in one of the undamaged flowers earlier this evening

Sunny, warm and breezy today (4/9/24), highs in the low 70's. Looks like it may turn out to be a good year for Red Admirals - there were 3 or 4 fighting the breezes to reach the neighbor's Snow Fountain weeping cherry earlier this evening (along with various bees), plus at least one RA visiting a small patch of Glory-of-the-snow (Scilla) in the backyard

@arbordave (SE MI) - what would you think about starting a new thread for 2024? I love this thread, but it's gotten so long!

@ruth_mi That's a great idea. It would be wonderful to see the pollinator thread rebooted every year going forward (similar to the annual fall colors thread). I’ll leave it up to someone new to get things started for the rest of the 2024 season. It's been a great run for this thread (approaching 2 years), and very satisfying to see the high level of interest in the topic. Many thanks to all who participated! My hope is that our discussion has inspired a greater interest, appreciation, and love for the little (and often forgotten) creatures that help keep our ecosystems functioning.

I’ll sign off (for this thread) with a couple photos from today (4/10/24). Bumblebee on Snow Fountain cherry:

Unknown miner bee hugging a trout lily:

Hi Dave, I am with Ruth, I'd love it if you would start another thread on Pollinators. You could rename this thread Pollinators 2023/24 and date the new one 24/25?

The reason I suggest it is becasue there are 679 posts in this thread and it is slow to load and you have to scroll down to the bottom to read the new posts. Why Houzz does not set it up so the most current posts are at the top, I do not know.

If you hit the box with the number of comments it will take you to the bottom.

tj

Really? That I did not know. Thank you tsugajunkie! That didn't work for me, but what did work, is I noticed you can sort by newest first....yay! That makes a big difference.

That did work for my phone tj.

On my pc, I can just hit the 'end' button.

tj, thanks! Yeah I learnt this trick from Rose forum. really helps a lot.

The new plants Orlaya blooms attracted new visitors that never came here before

It looks like a little bear with wings.

Not sure if they are bees or flies

Forever, that is some sort of fly, perhaps trying to mimic a bee.... It doesn't hurt to try.

Could it be a hummingbird moth? Does it hover?

^____ Bombyliidae - Bee Flies

Thanks Bill and prairiemoon.

It is indeed Bombyliidae. the picture matches. This is a very cute fly and it hovers like a hummingbird moth.

I also agree with prairiemoon that it will be better to start a new thread on pollinators, even though it is possible to jump to the end in one click. It is too long already

The Crimson clover patch we planted last fall is blooming now. It is a great view even though it is not in full bloom yet

So many honeybees are buzzing around

A small butterfly also visits

butterfly on pincushion flower