My Cherry Laurel is covered with flowers and smells so sweet, like candy. Today I noticed it was covered with very small bees, literally hovering around the whole bush and flitting from flower to flower. It was lovely to watch. I've been trying to find out more about these small bees. Anyone know what they are? Are they bees at all or wasps or perhaps yellow jackets? They are teeny in size, shaped (more or less) like honey bees. There were a lot of them on the shrub. I would like to know more about them but don't get very far googling "small bees" without a name... Thanks in advance.
hmmm i was just trying to look too for some answers but i couldn't pin point anything. I did learn though that there are about 20,000 species of bees worldwide! I've also seen small bees, they were flying around my sculptured holly bush tree things. I really need to get you guys to id that one sometime. not sure Daisy..
Hiyah Daisy...Those bees could ne Mason Bees--they are solitary and live in holes in wood. They are great pollinators. It would help if you could get a foto of one. I say Mason Bees, but actually there are several types of bees that it could be and they behave similarly. I have a little something written down somewhere about solitary bees...I shall have a look this evening(if I can only get some time )
I just looked up Mason Bees Sjoerd, interesting, bees that don't sting. People even make Mason Bee houses. Jerry
We have orchard bees. I'm not sure if orchard bees and mason bees are the same or not. They are plump, metallic green. I've only been stung by one when I was cleaning up the flower bed in the fall and they were beginning to hibernate in the dead stalk of a cone flower. Normally they don't bother you. I've found them nesting in the ground but i think mason bees nest in small "tubes. (You can even buy them to put out for the bees).
