# Bumblebee vs. Honey Bee



## RUUSA

I have a patch of Anise Hyssop planted for my bees but every time that I would check on them I only found bumble bees, and my hives are only 300 feet away. This is a small patch so there would be 15-20 bumble bees and maybe 2-3 honey bees. My thoughts went back to the spring when my fruit trees were in bloom and I had noted that, where there were a lot of bumble bees on a tree there would not be many honey bees. So, I tried a little experiment. I got my needle nose pliers out and started catching the bumble bees (yes really), after I had finished with them within an hour or so my Anise Hyssops were full of honey bees by the hundreds. I have repeated this a number of times now with the same results, thin out the bumble bees and the honey bees will come pouring in. Has anyone done any similar experiments to see why their honey bees may not be visiting the flowers the way they should?


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## MJC417

Nothing works tomatoes and peppers better than bumblebees in my area, I would never kill them. I see no benefit to honeybees by killing a few bumblebees.


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## Hops Brewster

Right now I am seeing both honey bees, lots of them, and bumble bees, working my Russian sage, as well as leaf cutters and another small native bee I haven't ID'd yet. Bumbles don't always force the honeybees away. When there is plenty of nectar, they don't fight over it.


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## RUUSA

I guess everyone would have their own opinion but I did see the benefit for my honey bees repeatedly from actually experimenting just to see what happens. Which leaves me to question, what is the total negative effect that bumble bees would have on honey production on 5 acres of clover if honey bees generally avoided the area because of the bumble bees. On a small patch of Anise Hyssop the difference in honey bee visits was huge.


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## FlowerPlanter

There are thousand of your honey bees working millions of flowers every day. They are just working a different flower at a different part of the day. 

We have plenty of flowers here that I see honey bees and bumblebee work side by side.

You are killing native bumblebee which could be endangered cause you think they are displacing your imported European Honey Bee on a few flowers.


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## Westhill

I see bumblebees and honey bees working the same flowers, right next to each other. I think FlowerPlanter is right, the bees may work flowers at different times of the day for their own reasons, not necessarily because another kind of bee is nearby. Bumbles and honey bees have tongues of different lengths that are adapted to find nectar at different depths. Maybe your flowers were filled with honey bees later in the day because the plants finally released enough nectar to get to a level where the honey bees could reach it. Please don't kill the bumble bees, we need all the pollinators we can get.


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## waynesgarden

I see bumble bees and honey bees working the same area of clover on my lawn. I think it is quite a huge stretch to think that honey bees would avoid areas as large as 5 acres due the presence of bumble bees.

While their preferences for specific plants do overlap, they are often attracted to plants that the other avoids, usually due to physiological reasons. 

I hope you are not using your simplistic experiment on a small patch of small patch of Anise Hyssop to encourage exterminating bumblebees as they are they are the primary pollinator of thousands of native plants and many cultivated plants.

They are important pollinators. That is fact, not opinion.

Wayne


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## RUUSA

@ FlowerPlanter, Thanks for the reply but I must disagree on every point.
They work the Anise Hyssop all day long and this is not the only patch that I have.
From my observations the honey bee always gets pushed aside if the bumble bee wants the flower.
These do not appear to be the native bumble bee you linked to. Really you have to ask, how many bees can you kill with needle nose pliers?
Native does not always mean better, the bumble bee has never put any honey in my hives and the honey bee will pollinate just about anything the bumble bee will. No I am not opposed to bumble bees, I am just trying to find out how much honey production they are costing bee keepers,


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## jwcarlson

RUUSA said:


> These do not appear to be the native bumble bee you linked to. Really you have to ask, how many bees can you kill with needle nose pliers?


If you were at it for an hour, possibly the majority of the bumblebee colony, honestly.


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## jbeshearse

Sharing a meal.


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## MJC417

"Native does not always mean better, the bumble bee has never put any honey in my hives and the honey bee will pollinate just about anything the bumble bee will. No I am not opposed to bumble bees, I am just trying to find out how much honey production they are costing bee keepers"


Honeybees will not pollinate tomatoes, bumbles do. Research buzz pollination. They don't cost any honey to beekeepers, in fact they don't store or overwinter large amounts of honey.


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## jwcarlson

MJC417 said:


> They don't cost any honey to beekeepers, in fact they don't store or overwinter large amounts of honey.


They don't store any honey overwinter because they abandon the nest and the queens pump antifreeze through their body until spring while sitting in leaves or soil or woodstack or whatever.
Not to say there isn't a teaspoon of residual honey left over when it all goes down... but the thought that bumble bees are costing him honey in any way shows a general lack of knowledge about not only bumble bees, but his own honey bees.


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## FlowerPlanter

>I must disagree on every point.
And I know you will continue too.

>how many bees can you kill with needle nose pliers?
Apparently enough to void your flowers of bumble bees, which live in small colonies one of you probably destroyed, a small colony can't afford to lose it's foraging force. 

>Native does not always mean better
So it's ok for you to destroy something cause you "feel" it's not better?

>the bumble bee has never put any honey in my hives 
This is nothing but Greed!

>honey bee will pollinate just about anything the bumble bee will.
Wrong

Your bees forage in a 2 mile circle maybe more, by killing your bumble bees you might have gained one drop of honey now. In turn there are going to be flowers that honey bee don't pollinate that may not get pollinated cause you killed you bumble bees, which may not seed, nor produce next year. Those may supported other pollinator that are now going to have to look for another source. Maybe they will find other flowers that honey bee also work. In the end it could cost you honey.

There is 50 species of bubble bees in North America. Which species are you killing?;

"The Bumblebee Conservation Trust was established because of serious concerns about the 'plight of the bumblebee'. In the last 80 years our bumblebee populations have crashed. Two species have become nationally extinct and several others have declined dramatically." 

http://www.currentresults.com/Wildlife/Endangered-Species/bumblebees-802141.php

http://www.xerces.org/bumblebees/guidelines/


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## Acebird

RUUSA said:


> I am just trying to find out how much honey production they are costing bee keepers,


You collected some data with your experiment but you didn't collect the right data to arrive at your conclusion. You don't know if eliminating those bumble bees affected your honey production. All you know is that more honeybees foraged on Anise Hyssop then before. It could work out that if a honey bee went to another kind of flower they would have collected more nectar than what they did from the Anise Hyssop. In the past man has made some serious mistakes killing something they didn't like over something they did like. No beekeeper I know worries about bumble bees.


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## deknow

A flow is a lot like halloween.

Any other night of the year you would have trouble getting anyone to give you candy by knocking on their door.

On halloween, there is more competition than the other 364 nights of the year combined, yet everyone gets their goodie bag filled.


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## dgrc

My wife and I have done everything we can over the last few years to make our yard pollinator-friendly with native plant species. The flowers in the yard are overrun with bumble bees, along with a fair number of mason bees and sweat bees. 

As for our hive, forget the nectar in the yard. it's up, up, and away. The colony looks healthy to my inexperienced eye and they're storing honey in a couple supers -- something I didn't expect in our first year. I assume the girls are finding large patches of good nectar sources and ignoring our humble offerings of this, that, and the flowering other on our suburban 1/3 acre.


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## RUUSA

@ jbeshearse nice picture, but no flower, thanks. I understand that we all like bumble bees and think they are good pollinators. However all that misses the point of the post. From my own observations on a small patch of Anise Hyssop a few bumble bees kept hundreds of honey bees from visiting that patch. It was too obvious, too predictable to be anything else. Now if this were to be the same case for say an acre of Anise Hyssop where there were hundreds/thousands of bumble bees, they could push thousands/tens of thousands of honey bees away in a days time costing the bee keeper a reduced harvest. It is my hope to find a way to put a mathematical number to that loss through observations and bee counts. At the end of the day there is a reason for this. I really just wanted to know if anyone had tried this before.


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## jwcarlson

I think you should go back and pinch the honey bees until there are none left and see if the bumble bees show back up.


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## dgrc

RUUSA said:


> ...Has anyone done any similar experiments to see why their honey bees may not be visiting the flowers the way they should?


I haven't done the experiment but when I took a bee keeping course through the U of MN extension program, I asked the two instructors if there is competition for nectar between honey bees and bumbles. ~60 years of accumulated bee yard experience and academic research looked at me and said, "No."

Just my 2¢ worth.


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## dudelt

I would leave the bumblebees alone and not worry too much about how much honey you are losing. Your 1 honeybee hive has over 30,000 bees. The typical bumblebee colony has maybe 150. That is not much competition for your hives.


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## Colokid

It seems obvious to me that if bumble bees presented any real threat to production it would have been noted a long time ago. Just because ur bees were not on your little patch of hyssop is no scientific indication that it affected ur harvest. Let the bumble bees have the insignificant hyssop flow and let the honey bees have the rest of the world. Seems such an obvious answer


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## Phoebee

This past weekend I had the camera out to photograph hummingbirds. The hummers just hate it when wasps and bees visit their feeder, and usually won't land. But this particular day we were seeing the hummers share the feeder with bumbles and honeybees. We also saw up to 5 hummers on one feeder, even if just for a second.

Must have been hungry.









We also tend to see way more bumbles than honeybees on the back yard forage we planted for our honeybees. We're actually glad. We'd worried about displacing the natives with our pets, but in fact we're seeing more natives than ever ... they appreciate the extra forage.


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## waynesgarden

dgrc said:


> ...I asked the two instructors if there is competition for nectar between honey bees and bumbles. ~60 years of accumulated bee yard experience and academic research looked at me and said, "No."



Experience and actual research are not nearly as entertaining as a couple 1st year beekeepers out to prove their odd ideas, gained either by observing a few flowers or in the case of the other bumblebee butcher in another thread, no research because he "hasn't time to learn."

It must be open season on the poor Bumbles this week. Too bad the killing fervor can't be directed where it might actually benefit honey bees, that is towards the mites.

Wayne


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## Sky

Ruusa - I'll agree it's an interesting question i too have noticed that sometimes some forage attracts either one or the other, and some attracts both -I have also noticed that sometimes the bumbles are all over something in the morning - no bees around, and then the afternoon shift of bees show up and the bumbles are gone. I don't know if keeping the bumbles away from one forage to allow the bees "more" access would make any difference other than to the bumbles who obviously are interested and being deprived of a preferred food source. i have watched the bees/bumbles/wasps in the garden for hours and never noticed the bumbles throwing their weight around or chasing anyone off, claiming flower turf or anything along those lines - I have seen bees leave when a bumble landed on the same flower, but have seen it the other way too... - I don't think either really pays a whole lot of attention to the other when they are both interested - they just take turns. My guess with the Hyssop and the absence of honey bees is your bees have found a preferable source of forage and are leaving the hysop to the lumbering giants - 

(many may be interpreting your question as "if i kill all the bumbles will I get more honey" which I want to believe is not the question - but if it is, i think your answer is no - your honey bees will forage on whatever is available, tapping their preferred sources first - if the bees preferred the hyssop (over whatever they are currently after) they;d be all over it like a pack of robber bees.....i'd be more concerned the bumbles are being chased off...... 

Sky


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## Dave A.

I have noticed a bumble bee guarding a lavender plant. When other bumbles approached - he (I think he) drove them off - when other bees (mason or honey) approached, he would wait for them to land on a flower, then he would "tackle" them. The tackled bee was pinned to the flower for a brief moment and then the bumble would fly off. The tackled bee often would fall a bit.. but never seemed to be hurt. 

It sure did look to me like that bumble had declared that lavender plant to be 'his' and he was going to defend it against all enemies; be it a foreign bumble bee or domestic honey bee.


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## Acebird

I am running my own experiment. I have put up two plots of buck wheat this year about three weeks apart and I have yet to see the honeybees take interest. Last year we grew buck wheat in the fall and it was covered with honeybees. So my assumptions is honeybees forage on what will give them the most nectar with the least amount of work ( I can relate to that). In the fall when there is not much else it would be buck wheat. In the spring and summer they want no part of buck wheat.


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## waynesgarden

RUUSA said:


> this link mentions about the competition between bumble bees and honey bees which is my point of interest


Did you read the page or just see the word "competition" and think you found the smoking gun? Their mentioning "competition" does nothing to support your hypothesis or fears. The Xerces Society link mentions competition as one of the possible causes of the decline of bumble bees. If there is completion between the two and the bumbles are declining, they clearly are on the losing end of the race.

You might look into the actual foraging habits of honey bees and bumble bees and their efficacy in various crops. You might find that though bumble bees are superior to honey bees in pollinating blueberries (study performed at Clemson University) for example, upwards of 60,000 hives of honeys are trucked to the blueberry barrens in Maine every year because of the small amount of local bumbles. (I've been there and no, a handful of bumble bees do not frighten away the many millions of helpless honey bees.)

There is no real competition.

Wayne


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## RUUSA

Thank You so much Sky. Your thoughts are correct, it is not my intent to kill off the bumblebees. In the spring I noted that the bumblebees seemed to prefer the apricot blooms while the honey bees preferred the peach blooms, again this seemed obvious having watched them for hours each day while the trees were in bloom. On my five acres of clover where there were a lot of bumblebees ,not so many honeybees around, but there were places that the honeybees greatly outnumbered the bumblebees. Now that the clover is finished the bees have the Anise hyssop I have planted and some crape myrtle in the area. My bees were flying over the Anise Hyssop (a preferred plant) which is close to get crape myrtle much further away. As it turned out in my opinion the bumble bees were the problem because soon after the bumblebees were gone honey bees simply covered the Anise Hyssop. Now how much money will I lose having to sell wildflower honey as opposed to premium Anise honey counting the volume of honey that may have been lost. That will determine how much money can be invested in finding away to separate the bees in the Summer like they were in the Spring (natural selection via the bees choice). So now you know why I need a number that will be difficult to find. Again thank you for being the one giving some benefit of the doubt.


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## photobiker

RUUSA, if you do your homework I'm sure you can find the appropriate hardware cloth to build cages to keep the bumble bees off your Anise Hyssop and allow the honey bee to come and go. Sounds like I'm being a smart A, and I sorta am but I can't believe there is one person on this forum that would kill any pollinator for a little bit of honey. What about the butterflies, they take nectar?

How many blossoms does it take to make a tablespoon of honey? What about the rabbits that eat the sunflowers? Where do you draw the line?

My garden wouldn't be what it is if it wasn't for the bumblebee because the honeybee didn't/couldn't do what the bumblebee could.


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## Colobee

I have two memorable regrets when it comes to bees. 

One was pinching a fine Buckfast queen from a colony that had produced almost 300 lbs of honey the year before. She was 3 years old, and all the books said " re-queen every year, or at least every other year". 

The other was destroying a bumblebee nest that had established in an abandoned compost pile out in the corner of the lot. We had a toddler, and I saw them as a threat. 

Both occurred over 30 years ago.

Both were done through ignorance (not stupidity). I just didn't know then what I know now.


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## the kid

i'll take having the bumblebees take the little nectar they take compard to what the yellow jacket ,, wasp ,, hornet take ,,,, this week we had some bumblebees come land on us and they were sweet as our honey bees ,, the yellow jacket ,, wasp ,, hornet were just there to sting the >>>>>>> out of us ,,, the bumble and honeys were sharing the flowers ,,,, so if you dont like the bumblebees ,,, go get some yellow jacket ,, wasp ,, hornet nests and keep them as your pets ,,,, you must think bumblebees are the only thing taking your nectar.......


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## Dmlehman

RUUSA said:


> I have a patch of Anise Hyssop planted for my bees but every time that I would check on them I only found bumble bees, and my hives are only 300 feet away. This is a small patch so there would be 15-20 bumble bees and maybe 2-3 honey bees. My thoughts went back to the spring when my fruit trees were in bloom and I had noted that, where there were a lot of bumble bees on a tree there would not be many honey bees. So, I tried a little experiment. I got my needle nose pliers out and started catching the bumble bees (yes really), after I had finished with them within an hour or so my Anise Hyssops were full of honey bees by the hundreds. I have repeated this a number of times now with the same results, thin out the bumble bees and the honey bees will come pouring in. Has anyone done any similar experiments to see why their honey bees may not be visiting the flowers the way they should?



The absolute lack of thought some people exhibit is truly sad. It is little wonder there are so many problems in this world. Native Bumble bees are vanishing in some places. Give thought a try next time.


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## waynesgarden

Even if one killed all the bumbles or somehow managed to screen them out, I'm curious how one can force the honey bees to visit only one type of flower in a small patch without having the vast majority of the foragers off bringing in more plentiful nectar from elsewhere, no matter how attractive the anise-hyssop is. Seems like one would have to have acres and acres of the stuff to reasonable label it a varietal rather than wildflower honey which is probably the best one can hope for with only a small patch.

Wayne


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## RUUSA

photobiker said:


> RUUSA, if you do your homework I'm sure you can find the appropriate hardware cloth to build cages to keep the bumble bees off your Anise Hyssop and allow the honey bee to come and go. Sounds like I'm being a smart A, and I sorta am but I can't believe there is one person on this forum that would kill any pollinator for a little bit of honey. What about the butterflies, they take nectar?
> 
> Not a bad ideal for a small patch but when you are talking acres the return has to justify the investment. From what I have observed so far the honey bees do not seem to mind the butterflies or any of the other small bees.
> 
> How many blossoms does it take to make a tablespoon of honey? What about the rabbits that eat the sunflowers? Where do you draw the line?
> Varies from flower type to flower type. No problem with rabbits however deer did eat the tops out of about five percent of the sunflowers. Bad advice to draw lines until you have been on both sides of it.
> 
> My garden wouldn't be what it is if it wasn't for the bumblebee because the honeybee didn't/couldn't do what the bumblebee could.


Lots of honeybees on the pumpkins no so many bumblebees. Lots of bumblebees on the cucumbers not so many honeybees.


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## RUUSA

the kid said:


> i'll take having the bumblebees take the little nectar they take compard to what the yellow jacket ,, wasp ,, hornet take ,,,, this week we had some bumblebees come land on us and they were sweet as our honey bees ,, the yellow jacket ,, wasp ,, hornet were just there to sting the >>>>>>> out of us ,,, the bumble and honeys were sharing the flowers ,,,, so if you dont like the bumblebees ,,, go get some yellow jacket ,, wasp ,, hornet nests and keep them as your pets ,,,, you must think bumblebees are the only thing taking your nectar.......


Show me with proven data how much nectar bumblebees, yellow jackets and wasp take. I do not have pets but in your case a little pat on the head might prove useful.


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## RUUSA

Dmlehman said:


> The absolute lack of thought some people exhibit is truly sad. It is little wonder there are so many problems in this world. Native Bumble bees are vanishing in some places. Give thought a try next time.


Now I must agree with that, think of all the things that have died so that you can have have a better life. Cry on your own time.


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## RUUSA

Sorry about the loss of a good queen, however I do not see either regret has a mistake. If your toddler was anything like mine they would have found the nest in a bad way. Even if you do regret it I say good call on both counts.


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## Phoebee

We try to force honeybees to pollinate crops they don't really like, like blueberries. Some species of bumbles may do it but they frequently cheat, slitting the side of the flower to gain access, which of course circumvents the flower's pollinating apparatus. We ignore one of the most valuable pollinators of blueberries. 

In fact, we murder them wholesale.

Mosquitoes and blackflies.


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## RUUSA

I am trying to get some Sainfoin to grow this far south. I will know more about it next year when it comes into bloom.


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## waynesgarden

Dmlehman said:


> The absolute lack of thought some people exhibit is truly sad.


But to put it into perspective D, we have a first year newbie with his first couple of hives, who, instead of worrying about how he's going to keep his hives from being killed by mites, or keep them from swarming, or protect them from robbing or how he's going to get them through the winter without starving as should be his main concerns, which are likely yours and still are mine, is worried only with how to maximize his profits by pipe dreams of selling varietal honey off a small patch of flowers.

He doesn't give a darn about bumble bees. I don't think he gives a darn about honey bees either. He's in it for the money and, apparently, he knows it all already.

My only reason for participating in this thread (as with the other thread where the newbie was killing bumble bees to "infect" honeybees with "beneficial" micro-organisms,) is so that future readers that stumble on this thread don't think this guy is presenting acceptable and rational solutions.

Since there's no immediate monetary gain in good husbandry, I suspect he'll be off trying to perfect a bumble bee excluder for his little patch of flowers while the mites weaken his hives and his bees die off early this winter. 

Wayne (Noted Internet Troll)


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## clyderoad

waynesgarden said:


> ....instead of worrying about how he's going to keep his hives from being killed by mites, or keep them from swarming, or protect them from robbing or how he's going to get them through the winter without starving as should be the main concerns as are likely yours and still are mine,
> 
> 
> 
> My only reason for participating in this thread (as with the other thread where the newbie was killing bumble bees to "infect" honeybees with "beneficial" micro-organisms,) is so that future readers that stumble on this tread don't think this guy is presenting acceptable and rational solutions.
> 
> 
> 
> Wayne (Noted Internet Troll)


why is the mastery of the basics of beekeeping in one's location not good enough for so many?? 

how time consuming will it be to point out all of the ridiculous solutions dreamed up for so many imaginary issues?


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## Colokid

I know rubber necking stops traffic but I always have to look before I speed off. This thread is much the same as much as I know I should move on I can't help myself. Good on ya Russa for sticking to your ill armed guns I give you credit for that but I cannot for the life of me think of a more ill thought out hypothesis. Now I can stop gawking. Maybe


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## RUUSA

Thanks for the reply Acebird, even with a test patch I could see where honey production could be greatly affected. In say this because of the bee counts went from one or two honey bees every several square feet to ten to fifteen per square foot, a huge difference. In my area at this time when Anise Hyssop would be in bloom it could easy be the number one nectar flow. Planting a acre is very labor and cost intensive, twenty thousand plants must be started in four inch pots with good medium, and taken care of, then twenty thousand holes must be dug (you see the point). Of all the Anise Hyssop seeds that I planted by hand in the field this year very few came up, of all the seeds from the same order I planted in pots none have been lost. I understand that there are a million ways and reasons that the bumblebees and the honey bees can not be separated on a larger scale but after all that, there must be one way it can happen, they are after all creatures of habit and instinct. I found your last statement a bit humorous, no beekeeper I know has any money from bee keeping, could be just coincidental.


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## Acebird

RUUSA said:


> no beekeeper I know has any money from bee keeping,


That is a strange statement. Surely you don't believe that?

I think anyone who tries to plant for nectar returns would go broke if this was the only bee's source.


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## jbeshearse

RUUSA said:


> Thanks for the reply Acebird, even with a test patch I could see where honey production could be greatly affected. In say this because of the bee counts went from one or two honey bees every several square feet to ten to fifteen per square foot, a huge difference.
> .



You know no such thing. Correlation is not causation. You changed one variable of many. There are other reasons the number of honeybees may have increased in the time frame you were tweezing bumblebees. As others have said, different bees work different blooms at different times of the day. That is one possibility. Another is that the earlier honeybees did their dance for their hive mates thus increasing visits to your patch. There are endless other possibilities. Your test proved nothing as you only controlled one variable of many and the only made one observation. Poor scientific procedure and application leads to poor conclusions. Keep wasting your time killing bumblebees and you will lose a lot more honey to mites, SHB, etc than you will ever lose to bumblebees.


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## Acebird

http://www.motherearthliving.com/plant-profile/anise-hyssop.aspx


> Anise hyssop is easily grown from seed, either by starting indoors as you would tomatoes or by sprinkling outside in spring or fall. Fall-planted seed will remain dormant and then sprout in the spring; this is the way mature plants sow their seed, after all. Your established anise hyssop will produce plenty of volunteer plants for you to share with friends or use to expand your planting. Fortunately, they’re extremely easy to transplant. Plantings can be increased by root division, too.
> This plant is easy to care for. It will thrive in full sun in well-drained garden soil — good news for the dry-land gardener.


This appears to be a more northern plant. Being part of the mint family I can see where it would be easy up here to grow. It seems like you are trying to fight nature with your plantings and bees.


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## FlowerPlanter

>it is not my intent to kill off the bumblebees.
But that's exactly what you did. And killed off enough to void your flowers of bumble bees, possibly killing one of your local bumble bee colonies.

>As it turned out in my *opinion *the bumble bees were the problem 
:scratch: 

>Now how much money will I lose having to sell wildflower honey as opposed to premium Anise honey counting the volume of honey that may have been lost.
How much honey did a few bumble bees collect from a small patch of flowers that honey bees did not collect that would not have been used to raise honey bee brood?

>That will determine how much money can be invested in finding away to separate the bees
Who is going to invest in that? You?
Exactly much money are you going to spend to keep bumble bee off your flowers?

>Again thank you for being the one giving some benefit of the doubt. 
Which bumble bees did you give the benefit of the doubt when you slaughtered them and their whole family? Was it the endangered species? Or just threatened one? 

>even with a test patch I could see where honey production could be greatly affected.
Really how? You don't have anything to compare, you have no historical data, you don't have any test areas with and without bumbles, you don't have a control, you have no studies of any kind, nothing you have done is even close scientific.
Here's something for you to compare; some bumble bee populations are down 97% where are the bumper honey crop because of it.

Take it from every beekeeper that posted on this thread all seem to agree; "As others have said, different bees work different blooms at different times of the day." "honey bees working side by side with bumble bees" this is coming from many different beekeepers with years of beekeeping experience. 

Where are your "*opinion*" coming from?


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## RUUSA

FlowerPlanter I can appreciate your interest and zeal however your link was to an article that was written about another article that was written about a case study. In that study this is what it had to say " Furthermore, causal factors leading to the alleged decline of bumble bee populations in North America remain speculative." It also stated that the honey bee is more important than the bumble bee. It seems that the authors of the first two articles only cherry picked what their readers wanted to hear.Thank you for the link even if it took a little time to trace down the actual scientific study. What was really funny to me is that the web site where the actual study is found "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America" is bookmarked on my favorites bar. I did pick up on something I want to try when they spoke about the bumble bee buzz, if I can get my hands on a high frequency sound generator. So pat yourself on the shoulder you have done something good even if you did not intend it that way.


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## Hops Brewster

Now that I think about it, I smell a troll.


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## Colobee

:applause:


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## RUUSA

clyderoad said:


> why is the mastery of the basics of beekeeping in one's location not good enough for so many??
> basics is basics, mastery is a different level
> 
> how time consuming will it be to point out all of the ridiculous solutions dreamed up for so many imaginary issues?


I am sure that it would take a long time to point out all the things like electricity, the automobile, the telephone, and at some point somebody came up with the ridiculous solution called the wheel. Some really crazy people who put up with a lot to make everyone's life a little better. Have a nice day


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## RUUSA

Hops Brewster said:


> Now that I think about it, I smell a troll.


Take a bath: problem solved: glad I could help


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## RUUSA

Acebird said:


> http://www.motherearthliving.com/plant-profile/anise-hyssop.aspx
> 
> 
> This appears to be a more northern plant. Being part of the mint family I can see where it would be easy up here to grow. It seems like you are trying to fight nature with your plantings and bees.


 It is a more northern plant and there reasons I chose it. In the clay soil here I did not have much luck with broadcast sowing, however the plants which were planted from pots are doing very well, average about three feet tall and loaded with blooms. I tried gibberellic acid @ fifty parts per million on some but it seemed to have a negative effect as those plants are less than two feet tall with less blooms. Now the reasons I went with it is, it has a very heavy nectar flow and I can time it to be in bloom when everything else is finished for the summer. I have also tried Sainfoin but here it will need to be planted on ridges to withstand the spring rains.


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## Acebird

RUUSA said:


> In the clay soil here I did not have much luck with broadcast sowing,


It can't be the clay soil. I grow a lot in clay soil. There is some science about how some seeds have to get triggered to germinate by going through winter. I am not sure if it is temperature or what. Maybe if you put them in the freezer prior to planting it would help. I don't know. I am only guessing.


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