I think so! All the wasps & hornets have split also. Only saw a few bees & yellow jackets yesterday. This is definitely the beginning of the end for them this year.

I have sweet fennel blooming in the garden. During the hours the sun is shining on these plants, they are absolutely swarming with yellow jackets.

To a lesser extent, that is true of the wild carrot (Dacus something-or-other) that is blooming near the garden. The wild carrot is only blooming where I have mowed it now and then thru the season - elsewhere it has already gone to seed. The perennial sweet fennel is probably late in blooming, as well. The plants were just started this Spring.

The yellow jackets, and probably most bees, are off enjoying ripe and over-ripe fruit. Orchards, with missed fruit still on the trees and on the ground, can be kinda dangerous places at this time of year.

Steve

I see that you're in zone 5/6. In your area goldenrod and aster should be blooming and these are more abundant pollen and nectar sources for honeybees than zucchini. The next four weeks represent the Fall nectar and pollen flow on which honeybees generate their winter honey and pollen stores. It's not that your zucchini isn't appealing to honeybees, it's just that there are things in bloom that are more appealing due to the relative abundance of the flowers and the quality of the nectar and pollen in those flowers.

I still have plenty of bees in the garden

I still have plenty of bumblebees all over my marigolds and I'm in the same zone as you, so they're not going away just yet.

You probably should go out with Q-tips, tho, to be sure they get pollinated.

For the first time in my life, I was stung by a bumblebee today. I reached over a flower and managed to press him against my chest - zap!!

After all these years and all those stings by other bees, I could hardly believe that a big, black bumblebee flew off the flower after I was finished leaning on him. On a happy note, antihistamine cream was just a short walk away and by the time I could get it on, the pain had stopped! After just a single application, I'm getting a little itching now but this was one merciful, "Wake-up idiot!!"

I still like 'em, sweet-tempered bumblers in the flower garden, yeah.

Steve

When/if I get insurance again, I really should get tested to see if I am truly allergic to bee and wasp stings. I'm allergic to mosquito bites. I'm allergic to peach fuzz, for pete's sake. It's safer to assume I'm allergic to bees as well.

To make the zucchinis feel more comfortable, I'll buzz while I'm out there with my Q-tip. :-) (I'm the "cat lady" with the unmowed lawn. My neighbors already think I'm crazy.)

The male part of the squash acts like a Q-tip. pick the male flower and peel off the outside of the flower and then use the center "Q=tip" to apply the pollen. you can leave it inside the female flower if bugs come they can transfer some more pollen.

here is a fairly good picture showing the male used as a Q-tip being applied to the female blossom. I like to leave the long green stem on the Q-tip

Here is a link that might be useful: squash pollen

I had the experience this year of a bumblebee liking the color of my shirt (teal) so much he landed on my chest for a nap! I let him stay there while I was out working, but obviously I couldn't bring him inside so I had to wake him up and shoo him off.

I've heard of bees sleeping in flowers. I guess he thought you were simply a large, bumble-bee-sized flower.

A yellow jacket and I were disagreeing over a peach. We both wanted it. I was trying to think of gentle ways to get him off the peach so I could have it. He had a couple hundred ruined peaches to choose from. I wanted the one whole peach.

I was going to bring this thread up again today to report on that bumblebee sting but here it is . . . Didn't want to leave the wrong impression on my experience with the bumblebee sting.

Even tho' I felt lucky that the sting didn't cause more pain and swelling right away - here it is 48 hours later and I'm still not very comfortable because of the swelling and itching. There's quite a lump under the skin on my ribs.

Strangely enuf, I've read on the web from supposedly "authoritative" sources that 95% of bee stings are from honey bees & 95% of bee stings are from yellow jackets. Well, suffice it to say that honey bees & yellow jackets can't BOTH be inflicting 95% of the stings. But, one can determine from these statements that bumblebee stings are rare. Lucky me!

On the "Starr sting pain scale," the bumblebee rates a 2.0 along with honey bees and yellowjackets. Honey bees cause a lot of swelling for me and yellow jackets hurt like sumofabitches.

Justin O. Schmidt went to great pains to come up with a narrative description in his Sting Pain Index. The scale runs from one (a tiny spark) to four (you might as well just lie down and scream). Schmidt notes the pain of a bumblebee's sting is of considerably shorter duration than the other #2 bees but I don't find a description.

He considers #2.0 Bald-faced hornet's sting as being "Rich, hearty, slightly crunchy. Similar to getting your hand mashed in a revolving door." The #2.0 Yellowjacket sting is "Hot and smoky, almost irreverent. Imagine WC Fields extinguishing a cigar on your tongue." I'll accept both of those and go along with the #2.x Honey bee sting as "Like a matchhead that flips off and burns on your skin."

My wife claims that if I'm stung by 2 of these #2 bees, they will kill me. She hasn't explained to me how she's come up with this diagnosis but I usually have quite large areas of swelling around a sting site. I practice what the MD's tell me - taking topical and oral antihistamines to reduce the itching and swelling. I've never experienced any anaphylaxis reactions, just think I'm sensitive.

Entomologists note that bumblebee populations in North America are threatened by diseases from introduced bees, habitat loss due to urban development and agricultural conversion, and the extensive use of pesticides. Numbers "appear to be in steep decline."

Steve
So sensitive I'd feel snubbed if a bee didn't bother to sting me . . .

Here is a link that might be useful: Managing Bee and Wasp Stings

Vinegar works for bee stings, and burns. Just soak a cotton ball or corner of a paper towel in it, and hold it on the sting. It will definately help the itching at least.

Do bees dislike garlic? I know other bugs are supposed to. I eat a lot of garlic. Maybe that discourages them?

Although it hasn't really discouraged the mosquitoes this year.