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  • Author Author: ralphjy
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Bees in Oregon 2026

ralphjy

  and I have been trading messages about flowers and bees in response to my Earth Day post.  He has a BeeBox nestbox for bumblebees and I mentioned to him that I've never been able to locate a natural bumblebee nest.  Well, today that changed and I thought I'd share that and info in general about how bees are doing in Oregon in the early spring.

My wife has been planting more native plants in order to help stimulate the native bees in our area.  She has received a Backyard Habitat Certification for her efforts.  This year the native plants have been slow to bloom because a cooler and wetter than normal spring (on average this is a typical spring, but weather has come in multi-week bursts that I think is hard on plants).  It's gotten consistently warmer and sunnier in the past few weeks and the plants are starting to respond.  We decided that it was the correct time to put out our Mason bee cocoons (actually ours were wiped out by wasps last year, but a friend had a bumper crop and she shared).  Mason bees hatch when the temperature is consistently above 18-20 C, but you want to wait until you have nearby flowers to support them.  Unlike honeybees, Mason bees have a very short foraging range.  Good news is that the cocoons have hatched and we have lots of bees in the front and back yards (we have a Mason bee house in each yard).

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I was out this afternoon taking some pics of the plants in the front yard.

Camas

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Oregon Iris next to one of the water plates that my wife put out for the bees.

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Then, I happened to see a large bumblebee on the another camas plant.

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I then saw it fly off int the direction of a large pine tree on my neighbor's property.  And when I walked over there I saw it on the ground digging and then it took off and entered a hole to the left of where it was digging (I wasn't able to get that on video, but I saw it go in and out quickly).

Here is a picture of the entrance to the nest.

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And a zoomed out view for perspective.  My house is on the left.

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Anyway, I'm very pleased to have found my first bumblebee nest.  I'm a little concerned that it is so exposed and next to the sidewalk.  I'll have to watch and see.  Haven't been many bumblebees yet this year.  I'll have to resist the urge to look inside Smile.

 

Other bees

I've started seeing lots of honey bees the last couple of weeks.  Not sure where they are coming from but their foraging range is supposed to be about 2 miles.  There were a lot of them in the French lavender today.  The flowers were swaying in the breeze, so the focus isn't that great.

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There were mason bees and sweat bees in the French lavender also, but they were moving about so quickly that I couldn't get a decent picture.  The sweat bees are also quite a bit smaller.

The good news is that lots of bees are out now.  It should be amazing when the Fireweed and Catmint are in bloom.

Parents

  •  thought you might like this video - Mason bees have been pretty active now the weather is dry and warmer (around 30C today).

    My wife mentioned to me that they were buzzing her today while she was weeding, so I took the opportunity to get a video.  My idea of using an IP camera to monitor the bees didn't pan out.  I'm having some WiFi issues with the camera, so it's been hard to record streaming video.  The motion detection also doesn't work well with the bees, but it does great with birds and squirrels Laughing.

    I did see a spider on the bee house.  Not sure if it was causing problems but I cleared it out.

    image

  • in reply to ralphjy

    The mason bees were probably trying to take advantage of the loose soil turned over by the weeding.

    I notice that these Mason bees appear to be able to turn around inside your tubes. In another video, I've seen them reverse out, turn around, then reverse back in.

    Weather has turned wet again here this weekend. Not seen any bees around the past few days. However the rain appears to have triggered the Salvia in the front garden into flowering. So we are officially open and ready for the workers now... No signs of any nectar robbing going on as yet.

  • in reply to beacon_dave

    My wife was also amazed that they didn’t back out.

  • in reply to ralphjy

    Perhaps that accounts for 90% of the time between entering and leaving.

       Austin Powers - 3 point turn
       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGiQOCX9UbM

  • in reply to beacon_dave

    Tree bumblebee worker spotted in the front garden Wednesday afternoon on the newly flowering Salvia 'Royal Bumble'.

    Perhaps not an ideal match as they are shorter proboscis bees and the Salvia tend to require a longer proboscis (or by nectar robbing by tunnelling in through the side). However, the 'ramming your head in' technique being demonstrated, would also appear to work.

    I used to have a lot of Tree bumblebees visiting (some even nesting in the air bricks, composting bins, etc.) but last year they were replaced by Common Carder bumblebees, which have a longer proboscis.

  • in reply to beacon_dave

    Common Carder bumblebee worker spotted on the Salvia yesterday whilst I was tidying up the garden in-between the rain showers. So some nests around, just not in my BeeBox it would appear. Still, if they are managing to find natural nesting sites in the area, I'm ok with that.

    I'm getting a bit concerned about the lack of bee activity here so far though. Have just been checking the dates on some of the bee photos last year and I was already out with the camera by now.

    Plenty of flowers out in the front garden for them now, more than enough to allow me to start pruning back a few of the plants. Have planted a couple more out in the back garden, where they tend to be about a month or two behind the ones in the front, so hopefully also extending the food supply further into the Autumn in the process.

    The Fuchsia out front have woken up from their Winter slumber and have started to produce new green shoots. Will be interesting to see if last year's Elephant Hawk moths reappear. I've yet to see one in moth form despite their size/colour, just their caterpillars, which have a penchant for Fuchsia leaves.

  • in reply to beacon_dave

    Doing a bit better today, up to 4 bumblebees at once. Three Common Carder and the fourth looked like a Garden, which would be a first sighting if it was. Difficult to see its long face for ID when it is buried deep in flowers though. It would also mean another nest.

Comment Children
  • in reply to beacon_dave

    Good to hear that bumblebee activity has picked up.  It's still a little slow here.  Mason bees are the most active after the honeybees.

    My IP camera in back was picking up bee activity,  but the WiFi is still bad - captures were due to motion detection.  Here's a video of a Mason bee looking for a good tube. I didn't realize they were so picky...

  • in reply to ralphjy

    Perhaps it just couldn't remember which was their tube. "I'm sure I left junior around here somewhere..."

    Which asks the question of how does a new bee to the area know which is a newly occupied tube verses a tube with just a bit of mud at the end of it ?

  • in reply to beacon_dave

    They supposedly use pheromones and visual cues, but I guess I should make things more distinct and use fewer tubes with more spacing.  Learning as I go…  I probably won’t use the paper inserts anymore as they seem to prefer the plain cardboard ones - probably mostly for the larger diameter.

    Maybe I’ll use the paper inserts later in the summer, although I’ve never had any success with Leaf cutter bees.