Best time for bees

The best time to watch bumblebees

When's the best time to watch bumblebees in September? Is it on sunny mornings? I've noticed that white-tailed bumblebees and common carder bees seem active at 8am when the sun's shining.

  In my garden, it's the self sown weeds that are attracting the bumblebees at the moment:

Evening primrose

Sweet Pea

Teasel

Do Bees behave differently in September?

This morning I watched a white-tailed bumblebee racing from one evening primrose flower to another without collecting nectar or pollen, almost bumping into a carder bee that was leaving a flower, revisiting flowers it had just rejected, flying towards other plants with flowers but rapidly flying onwards. She gave the impression of being desparate for a fix of sugar-containing nectar.

  I wondered if the combination of warm sun, cool shade and less nectar was affecting her behaviour; the available nectar-containing flowers seem to have been well visited by bees and hoverflies.

  On the other hand I watched a white-tailed worker get caught up in a strand of spider's web and after being held for a few seconds she flew strongly enough to free herself.

A carder bee drinking from a blue sow-thistle

Carder bees will chase off common blue butterflies and small coppers who were feeding on white clover:

Clover is about the only nectar-producing flower in grass meadows around here.