Monarch butterfly sighting, but where are the bumblebees?

[Marge Victor Alig]

We had a monarch butterfly in our yard in the Oak Creek area near Bald Hill for a few hours last Monday. Last time I observed one hon our property was 2017. We have a 6 foot wide, 5’ tall patch of Asclepias in bloom, and the monarch flew over frequently, and settledown there briefly a few times. A lovely sight.

Is anyone seeing bumblebees? I saw what I assume were queens a couple months ago, but have hardly seen any since. Would appreciate hearing anybody’s observations.

Marge

[Adrienne]

Good morning Marge,

I've seen bumblebees around the large bunch of poppies across the street -- they love bumblebees; and also on the large leaf lupine I had (they've gone to seed now).

Your inquiry prompted me to look the info below up online and I found this, so sharing as well:

https://today.oregonstate.edu/news/25-plants-attracting-native-bees-garden

Adrienne

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[Don A Boucher]

Hi everyone,

When you notice a change in species where you commonly observe, and wonder if it's a more widespread issue, you can search iNaturalist. For instance, I did a search for Benton County with filters for April thru June 2024 for the genus "Bombus" and got these results: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?d1=2024-04-01&d2=2024-06-30&place_id=484&subview=map&taxon_id=52775

I did similar search for April thru June 2023 and got a little bit fewer reports. This is a crude assessment but it seems that there are regular numbers of bumblebee for naturalist to observe locally.

You can do similar type of search using eBird.

Numbers of any taxon in a specific spot can rise and fall under normal circumstance. Of course it's impractical to survey your neighbors on what what they are doing in their backyards that could affect any population of critters in the neighborhood. I thinking about pesticides, landscaping, construction, cats, etc.

-Don Boucher

Corvallis

[Bill Gerth]

Oh how exciting that you got to see a monarch in our neighborhood, Marge!!

 

I haven't seen a monarch, but I have been seeing plenty of bumblebees in our yard.

 

Cheers,

Bill

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