Topic: Bees, butterflies and hoverflies

[queenbee]

I can count on one hand the amount of butterflies I have seen in the last month, I went out in the lovely sunshine today and did not see one bee and just a couple of hoverflies. Could anyone tell me the prognosis for next year. I live in the north where we have had such bad weather in the last few months. I have even considered taking the covering of my brassica to attract more cabbage whites. I have given up on these as the slugs have eaten the hearts of most of them.

[Flighty]

Queenbee wildlife in general has had a hard time this year. These two recent threads have links to relevant articles -

http://www.allotments4all.co.uk/smf/index.php/topic,73224.0.html

http://www.allotments4all.co.uk/smf/index.php/topic,73189.0.html

As for next year much depends on the weather between now and then.

[Robert_Brenchley]

So far I've seen very few butterflies; at the moment there seems to be nothing but a few commas on the site. That's the weather, plus other environmental stuff which has been affecting them. We never see anything like the numbers I remember from when I was a kid.