Bees dying?

by Marie
(Alpine, CA)

We have a large organic area in which we've planted native plants for our area (east San Diego). We just returned from a trip only to find over 100 dead and dying bees all around the ground in one of our sage plants. The dying bees are suffering - walking in circles, buzzing wildly before turning on their backs and dying. It's terrible to see.

We have a propane tank nearby,(which we've had for 20 years), but we don't smell any leakage.

The only other thought we have is that an angry neighbor sprayed the bush with pesticide? (Believe it or not, someone has done that before).

Any thoughts?

Hi Marie

The neighbor spraying the bush is one possibility, especially if there was a swarm of bees which alighted there wen you where away and the neighbor didn't know any better than to spray them.

Another possibility is that the swarm was settled somewhere else and some fool sprayed them which caused them to move to your bush temporarily, but ultimately leave.

The Bee Guy