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Tag Archives: British bees

Even more piles of dirt

02 Monday May 2022

Posted by sconzani in insects

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British bees, kleptoparasitism, mining bee, nomad bee

Bottoms up! A mining bee heads into its burrow covered in pollen, food for its eggs when they hatch.

220502 (1) mining bee

But, lurking nearby, is its kleptoparasite, a nomad bee that will lay its eggs in the burrow so its larvae can eat the mining bee’s food store. Sneaky!

220502 (2) Nomad bee

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Bee volcanoes

06 Wednesday Apr 2022

Posted by sconzani in insects

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

British bees, mining bee nests, mining bees, solitary bee nests, solitary bees, tiny piles of dirt

I can’t take the credit for the title of today’s post: by sheer coincidence, after returning from a walk with photos of these tiny dirt mountains, I spotted a tweet about the mini volcanoes of the bee Andrena fulva, and it seemed a very appropriate description. Mine may not be the work of that same bee species but they do indicate where solitary bees have dug out nest burrows for their young. I’m not sure whether these bee volcanoes are from newly hatched bees emerging from their winter nests or these volcanoes have only recently been excavated for the adult bees to lay this year’s eggs.

220406 solitary bee nest (1)
220406 solitary bee nest (2)
220406 solitary bee nest (3)

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Another percher

14 Monday Mar 2022

Posted by sconzani in insects

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Andrena flavipes, bee on finger, British bees, mining bees

How lucky am I? After blogging last week about my delight at having a hoverfly sit on my hand, I’ve had another tiny percher. This time it was a bee, possibly a Yellow-legged mining-bee (Andrena flavipes), but don’t quote me on that. It was reluctant to fly off, as it was a cool day, so I carried it along with me until I got to a willow with open catkins, which my little flying friend was happy to move on to.

220314 bee on finger

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Flying critters

28 Monday Feb 2022

Posted by sconzani in insects

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Andrena flavipes, British bees, British wasps, Lasioglossum species, Vespula vulgaris

Though a cool breeze blew from the south east, yesterday was wonderfully sunny, so I planned my walk to check the more sheltered spots in the local landscape where I hoped I might find newly emerged flying critters. And I got lucky. As well as my first two butterflies of the year (Small tortoiseshell and Brimstone, both too distant for photos with the camera I had with me), I also found some solitary bees and a wasp.

220228 lasioglossum (1)
220228 lasioglossum (2)

Thanks to Liam Olds, of the Colliery Spoil Biodiversity Initiative, I can tell you the two bees above are both ‘female Lasioglossum sp. [species] (morio group but not possible to ID from pics)’ and the bee below is a ‘male Andrena flavipes by the looks’.

220228 andrena flavipes

And the wasp I found basking on a tree trunk is a Vespula vulgaris.

220228 vespula vulgaris

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Busy buzzing

14 Thursday Oct 2021

Posted by sconzani in autumn, insects

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bees on Ivy flowers, British bees, Colletes hederae, Ivy bee

Every year I look out for them. Every year I share photos of them, and 2021 is no exception. Here, then, are some of this year’s cohort of Ivy bees, at their burrows and feasting on Ivy flowers.

211014 ivy bees (1)211014 ivy bees (2)211014 ivy bees (3)211014 ivy bees (4)

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Humongous Hornet

29 Tuesday Jun 2021

Posted by sconzani in insects

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British bees, European hornet, Hornet, Vespa crabro

There’s no doubt about it – the European hornet (Vespa crabro) is an imposing, awe-inspiring creature, a giant of the apian world.

210629 european hornet (2)

I spotted this one resting on a bramble bush during a woodland walk on Saturday and, as I rarely see them stationary, couldn’t resist getting some close-up photos. But not too close: these shots were taken using my 300mm zoom lens, so I was about two metres away. And I admit that, when the hornet became aware of me and turned to check me out, I did back off a little further. They rarely sting – only when stressed or threatened; it’s their sheer size (between 25-35mm) that I find a little intimidating.

210629 european hornet (1)

But this beautiful creature obviously didn’t see me as a threat and proceeded to clean its wings and eyes while I looked on in awe. A special encounter!

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A rare sighting

10 Wednesday Mar 2021

Posted by sconzani in insects

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Andrena bees, bee parasites, British bees, British insects, male Stylops emerging from bee, parasitic relationships, Stylops

These photos had the entomologists on Twitter getting excited when I first posted them Monday evening. Though I didn’t realise it at the time, what I was seeing was a parasite emerging from the back of the bee’s body. The parasite is a Stylops, a species that has a rather gruesome but incredibly fascinating lifestyle.

210310 bee parasite (1)

The female Stylops lives permanently in the body of its host, often, as here, one of the Andrena species of bee. Her head and thorax poke out of the bee’s abdomen so she can release male-attracting pheromones and mate. I managed to photograph these and blogged about them in April 2020 (Wild word: stylopised). When the resulting larvae emerge, they pop out onto flowers the bee is feeding on, so they can then hitch a ride with another bee, burrow into it, and start the process all over again.

210310 bee parasite (2)

Some of the Stylops larvae are male, with wings. They do not have mouth parts for feeding as their only purpose is to find a female and mate. It is one of those emerging winged males that can be seen in my photos and, apparently, this process is rarely seen. Unfortunately, someone came walking along the path where I was watching this bee and I had to move to one side to allow them to pass at a safe distance. When I looked back, the bee had disappeared.

If you want to read more about the Stylops, there’s an interesting article on the Royal Entomological Society website – the male Stylops has the distinction of appearing as the emblem on the society’s official seal and logo.

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305/366 Insecting

31 Saturday Oct 2020

Posted by sconzani in autumn, insects

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British bees, British insects, Buff-tailed bumblebee, Common carder bee, Common Darter, Common earwig, Ivy bee, Ivy bee burrow

Despite the appalling weather – frequent heavy rain and occasional strong winds – we’ve been experiencing over the last couple of weeks, I have managed still to find a few hardy insects, persisting by cunningly finding sheltered places to avoid the worst of the inclement conditions.

201031 buff-tailed bumble
201031 common carder

These bees seem to have the right idea. On the left is a Buff-tailed bumblebee, which I watched emerging from inside the cosy, fluffy duvet of an Old man’s beard seedhead and, on the right, a Common carder that seems to have the same idea and be looking for a place to snuggle down.

201031 earwigs (1)
201031 earwigs (2)

Also looking cosy, these Common earwigs were huddling in the cups of umbellifer seedheads.

201031 common darters

Common darters have still been active in the more sheltered spots during the occasional sunny periods, these at Cosmeston Lakes Country Park.

201031 ivy bees (1)
201031 ivy bees (2)

The last of this year’s brood of Ivy bees were still feeding their grubs. They had made use of a rabbit scrape to excavate the underground burrows where their eggs are laid, grubs hatch and pupate and will remain until emerging as adult bees next autumn.

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260/366 Searching the scabious, 1

16 Wednesday Sep 2020

Posted by sconzani in insects, plants, wildflowers

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

bees on scabious, Bombus pascuorum, Bombus terrestris, British bees, British wildflowers, Buff-tailed bumblebee, Bull-headed furrow bee, Common carder bee, Devil's-bit scabious, Lasioglossum leucozonium, Lasioglossum zonulum, Megachile ligniseca, White-zoned furrow bee, Wood-carving leafcutter bee

In recent weeks, when the weather has been fine and the air relatively still, I’ve been spending time searching the Devil’s-bit scabious for bees. Not just any bees, but four scarce and endangered bees. This is part of Buglife’s ‘Searching for Scabious’ project, which

aims to improve our understanding of the distribution and conservation status of some of Wales’ rarest and most threatened solitary bees – the Large Scabious Mining Bee (Andrena hattorfiana) and its associated cuckoo, the Armed nomad bee (Nomada armata), and Small Scabious Mining Bee (Andrena marginata) and its cuckoo, the Silver-sided nomad bee (Nomada argentata).

I wasn’t familiar with these bees and am not very good at bee identification in general but Liam Olds, Buglife’s local conservation officer, has put together an excellent explainer video, which can be accessed on YouTube, so I thought I’d join the search.

Unfortunately, I haven’t managed to find any of the scarce bees at the two local sites where Devil’s-bit scabious grows in abundance (and neither has Liam, which was reassuring for me re my search skills but bad news for the bees). The bees I did find most commonly were the appropriately named Common carder (Bombus pascuorum) (below, left) and the Buff-tailed bumblebee (Bombus terrestris) (below, right).

200916 common carder
200916 buff-tailed bumble

Liam very kindly helped to identify the other small bees I found. These lovely little furrow bees are either the White-zoned furrow bee (Lasioglossum leucozonium) or the Bull-headed furrow bee (Lasioglossum zonulum) – the two species are too similar to tell them apart without closer examination.

200916 Lasioglossum leucozonium or zonulum (1)
200916 Lasioglossum leucozonium or zonulum (2)

I also found several of these more distinctive individuals, the Wood-carving leafcutter bee (Megachile ligniseca). You can find out more about them, and watch a little video of their nest-building skills, on the BWARS website. Meantime, I’m heading back to the scabious for another look.

200916 Megachile ligniseca (1)
200916 Megachile ligniseca (2)

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108/366 Tawny miners

17 Friday Apr 2020

Posted by sconzani in insects, nature, spring

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Andrena fulva, British bees, mining bees, Tawny mining bee

Another day, another mining bee. You’ll recall we had the grey-haired Ashy mining bee on Tuesday; well, today we have the Tawny mining bee (Andrena fulva). And what a cracking colour it is! I’d love to have hair like this.

200417 Tawny mining bee (1)

The Bumblebee Conservation Trust website says these bees ‘can be found nesting in large groups and can be common in urban environments and garden lawns’ but I think that depends on location as the bees I see locally are usually singles, in less urban environments and, sadly, not as common as I’d like them to be, as their rich vibrant colour is very cheering.

200417 Tawny mining bee (2)

Unfortunately, just like the Ashy mining bees, the Tawnies can also fall victim to bee-fly predation. You can read more about that and the bees themselves on the BCT website here.

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About me

sconzani

sconzani

I'm a writer and photographer; researcher and blogger; birder and nature lover; countryside rambler and city strider; volunteer and biodiversity recorder.

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