What's Killing my Bees

[MuswellMetro]

just took these photos of a predator killing my bee in the garden

It a type of spider and the garden is over run with them

My por little july caste of black mongrel bees is having a hard time and i counted twenty bees killed like this in flowers around the garden

it the last straw for the hive thats been under wasp attack, robbing and now spiders

i am trying to keep them seperate from my italainX as they appear a feral type bees with minus 2 discoidal shift on the wing veins, i tried evething, added two frames of brood, block them up for two days,fed the, insulated them but i doubt they will survive,

 

[RoofTops]

It's a type of Crab Spider.

We have a lot of normal web-spinning spiders around the sedums at the moment which are in flower and loved by the bees. I don't worry about them as the losses due to spiders are minimal compared to the threats like wasps.

Everything has its place. Well almost...

 

[tonybloke]

they are a crab spider, known as 'white death'

 

[Monsieur Abeille]

Look bloomin scarey!

 

[kazmcc]

Looks like a skull with legs ( shudder ) Sorry to hear there is no saving them, shame.

 

[MuswellMetro]

they are a crab spider, known as 'white death'

i was quite surprised how quickly the little fruit flies arrived once the bee stopped moving it was a matter of seconds must be some death smell that attracted them to the bee corpse

all i will say is that there are now far fewer spiders than there were this morning