I keep seeing bees?

[Pigeon feather]

Has anyone else noticed there are alot of bumble bees around? right now on my mahonia there must be at least 3 buzzing around the flowers, it is very cold at the moment and we have had a fair amount of snow overnight although the sun has come out now, is this normal?

[JRsbugs]

Apparently this is now the norm for Bombus terrestris, they are being seen as winter active in mostly southern areas but some have been seen further north. Mahonia is a good winter food for them, my neighbour has a couple of plants so I should take a look at his, or get one myself.

We have been having very low temperatures here lately, down to around -9C with last night around -7C as it was -4.5 in the greenhouse. Daytime temps have been 0 to 3C with 1C more the norm, probably not warm enough for them and at the moment we don't have snow.

You can send your winter records to bwars as they are mapping their winter activity.

BWARS Home Page

Janet

[tameblackbirds]

This is very interesting not seen any myself but have book marked the page