Seeing more bees in the garden
 

This fat praying mantis taking a bite out of a bee, body pointing pretty much straight left on a basil plant. Abdomen as fat as your thumb

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1191105597.jpg

Flipped upside down, so he is rightside up with a mouthful of bee, loking at the camera

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1191105797.jpg

a browner one, standing next to a 6 inch anaheim chili for scale, probably only 50% the size of the other one. Have a lot of good predators in the garden this year, praying mantis, ladybugs. The bees seem to be coming back too, pretty thick on the tomatillo plants, but no pic of that.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1191105903.jpg

Ive noticed many more praying mantis in my garden than ever before..

A good thing I suppose

they go where the food is and where they have good "cover" :)
i like watching the food chain work :)

Humm ...recently Bill Maher (HBO Real Time) said all the bees were dying in North America and that soon the food would all be gone and we would all be starving soon ...and gosh he really scared me.... so you better start eliminating those mantis pests ...NOW mister!

(insecticide)

Bill Maher is a Giant Douche. The bees are coming back, was some sort of virus that most of the north american and european bees were succeptible to, but the Aussie bees were immune. There were all sort of urban myths, cell phones killing them, sunspots, bunch of nonsense, though I believe insecticides had something to do with it.

I very rarely use any sort of commercial chemical stuff on the garden, too many downsides. I would rather knock the aphids back with the hose and wait for the ladybugs to wipe them out.

Nice garden Tobra! I lost all my tomatoes parsely and cilantro, but this brown-thumb somehow didn't completely off the green peppers, jalepano's, chillis, sage, sweet bazil and oregeno. Nothing better.

Farmer Ellie Fante has been maintaining the bat net for a long time, so they can feed with impunity. All that green seem like such a waste: can't spend it, can't eat it:p

what about them killer african/euro mix bees, immune as well or not?

je ne sair pas

Al Gore said we killed all the bees, thanks to GLOBAL WARMING!!!!! You mean Al Gore was wrong?!:rolleyes: