droughted pollinators?

[Frederick W. Schueler]

Everyone,

Our lawn is golden with Dandelion blooms, but just now the only
pollinator on any of them is a Polistes Paper Wasp. Yesterday at our
Duchess Apple tree, the only largish pollinator was a Polistes, with a
few small flies. Yesterday we had a medium-size solitary Bee and a
Polistes on the Dandelions.

The only Bumble Bees I've seen have been 2 on the Canada Plum blooms
about a week ago, and one road-killed in the village intersection just now.

This sure looks like last summer's drought knocked back populations of a
lot of non-Polistes species - I wonder what others are seeing?

fred.
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---------Frederick W. Schueler & Aleta Karstad ------------
Fragile Inheritance Natural History - https://fragileinheritance.ca/
6 St-Lawrence Street Bishops Mills, RR#2 Oxford Station, Ontario K0G 1T0
on the Smiths Falls Limestone Plain 44.87156° N 75.70095° W
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[Bev Wigney]

fred and all,

Speaking for my area of Nova Scotia (Annapolis Valley near Annapolis Royal), I think all the insect numbers seem down, but definitely bees.  Seeing a fair number of Paper Wasps around, but not much else so far.  Hoping things are just late, but as you know, we had a pretty awful drought in 2025 and also 2023.  There was a lot of smoke from fires, which is also believed to be detrimental to insects.  Will know more as I begin photographing moths -- tonight will probably be my first night of the season to do so.

bev

Round Hill, NS

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[Tana McDaniel]

The larger carpenter bees, Xylocopa sp, are certainly out in numbers and busy doing battle with each other or anything else that flies by.

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[Fred Schueler]

On 5/19/2026 2:16 PM, Frederick W. Schueler wrote:

> Yesterday at our Duchess Apple tree, the only largish pollinator was a Polistes, with a few small flies.

* but just now the tree is bussing with many Bumble Bees, and there are
many in the one blooming Apple tree across the street, so their earlier
scarcity was behavioural rather than a depleted population.

fred.
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Frederick W. Schueler & Aleta Karstad

Fragile Inheritance Natural History - https://fragileinheritance.ca/

2024 annual letter: https://clt1233162.bmeurl.co/11E63979