What’s all the Buzz about in August?
It’s all about the next generations and getting ready for winter!
From early spring until midsummer, all three bee types have been very very busy!
- Solitary Bees : creating many egg cell nests and provisioning them for their young to pupate ready for next spring emergence
- Bumblebees: creating a viable nest colony to produce as many queens and drones for summer emergence for a mated queen to over winter.
- Honeybees: building colony size and gathering as much nectar as possible for their winter honey store
But August is the pivotal month: Solitary Bees virtually disappear having completed their spring / early summer cycle of creating as many food provisioned egg chambers as possible.; Bumblebee nests reach their lifecycle end; Honeybee queens are reducing her summer laying activities to transition into the laying of the Autumn / Winter brood survival colony.
Why are the bees starting to prepare for next year’s generations?
To understand you will have to look back on their ice age evolution and appreciate how each bee type adapted to the cold.
- Solitary Bees evolved by not trying to survive the winter at all, but provision the next generation for spring emergence by creating as many food provisioned egg chambers as possible.
Bumblebees survived the repeating cold ice age periods by developing a warm furry coat and so even today are limited to the more cooler temperate climates as they will quickly overheat in southern Mediterranean and desert climates.- Honeybees clusters like the Emperor Antarctica Penguins, protecting the queen and her winter brood by ensuring their queen is kept safe in the middle, with the worker bees taking turns on the colder edge of the cluster inside the hive. All this takes lots of energy hence the need for plenty of honey stores. [The Honeybee is the only insect that makes a honey winter food source].
But survival also depends on creation of the next generations, and mid summer is when the Honeybee and Bumblebee both move their focus to creating plenty of drones [the males]. However their queen production approach is very different. More about that in September‘s article
Some good news with our climate effects this year:
The early spring conditions that benefited from a mild winter and plants flowering earlier than usual as been beneficial for Bumblebees. This has resulted in a double generation of Bumblebees. The photo shows a queen Buff-tailed Bumblebee and was taken 8th June which means there is sufficient time for the queen to produce a second nest generation of Bumblebees. All very good news for the struggling Bumblebee population.
How you can help the bees in August: put simply August is the time of maximum bee populations as ‘the boys are back in town, hanging around waiting for the Queens. This is a time when you can get really close to the bees to have a look at their beautiful colours as drones have no sting whatsoever. So more bees means they need plenty of food sources and this is where the huge lavender spike plants are tremendous bonus and you get the rewards of being able to spot at waist high level the buzzing of the bees and seeing how their tongues dip into each flower to extract the nectar. Other useful August plants are Echinacea, Montbretia, open headed Dahlias, any type of summer Daisy plants, Marigolds, Snapdragons, Sedum, Phlox and why not try Cornflowers as wildflower in-fillers. And finally don’t forget the shallow basin of water with stone stepping stones…topping it up daily.
Barbara and Kenneth Robson on behalf CB400 Foundation
https://www.charlesbutler400foundation.org.uk/