Honey bees have been pretty much void around my house for a few years already. On the upside, I have been seeing more bumble bees than "normal". And already I've seen several yellow jacket type bees that I usually don't see until much later Not an upside).

LOTS of bumbles and little wild bees here. I'm keeping my eyes open though for the honey bees I should be getting from the UofM hives. The like to travel to my gardens when thing start blooming. They call it "bee balm" for a reason!

-Marie

I've seen a few here, but it's been cooler then usual and I think the insect population in general is down here. At least so far...

An awful virus has struck bees world-wide. That's one of the problems - but they don't think that's entirely it. Definitely worth being concerned about!

I've been letting two perennial oreganos go wild in my garden just for the bees - that and my mother of thyme are always completely and totally covered in bees once they start blooming. I don't even harvest those ones anymore - I figure the bees seem to need them more than I do. :)

I do have more in the last couple days, maybe because it warmed up. I have a HUGE flowering crab that is normally covered in bees when it blooms. And I am not talking honey bees, but some bumble bees mostly native bees though. This was the first years it was thick with them. Which is what I noticed.

Jenny P

Plenty around here in Welch and Mississippi river bottoms. I'd say we have more this year than in recent years. We've had more blooms though to. Going to be a bumper crop of wild plums and raspberries, etc this year.