Bumbling Bees on the Old-Fashioned Rose

This lovely old-fashioned rose smells divine as it blooms for several weeks.  

It sprawls along one side of the deck at the old house and seems to spread quite easily so I'm hoping to be able to transplant a few starts to the new house to ramble along the back deck there.  It gets lovely big rose hips once the blooms are gone.

Its strong smell is a beacon for bees of all sorts and sizes and it has been humming along with activity for a little over two weeks.  Mornings are especially busy but they don't seem to be too bothered with our comings and goings.  Even the kids (who have terrible bug phobias) have gotten used to these little visitors and discuss what a wonderful job they are doing and wondering if their honey tastes like roses.  They have gotten a little more brave in the past few days and checked out the technique the little fat fuzzy bumbly bees have as they roll their rotund little bodies around to gather as much pollen as possible.  

Big sister has even convinced Little Man that bees are our friends because without them our little strawberry plant flowers would not make strawberries and so on.  (Another reason I don't like to use chemicals on the garden and around the yard if we don't absolutely have to.)  We are honored to have these little visitors happily humming along in our garden - earlier in the season they spent lots of time at the redbud tree at the new house and on the chive blossoms.  

Several of my friends have commented that they do not seem to have any bees visiting this year and are concerned about their garden outputs.  

Are you seeing the usual amount of bees in your garden this year?