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Tag Archives: Common carder bee

Companions

31 Wednesday Aug 2022

Posted by sconzani in insects

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Bombus lapidarius, Bombus pascuorum, British bees, British bumblebees, Common carder bee, male Red-tailed bumblebee, Red-tailed bumblebee

As our hot dry summer draws to a close, flowers are in short supply so, sometimes, hungry critters just have to share. Here, a male Red-tailed bumblebee (Bombus lapidarius), left, shares with a Common carder bee (Bombus pascuorum). (Yes, I know the Red-tailed doesn’t actually have a red tail and it certainly doesn’t look like the images I had been searching through when trying to put a name to it, but my friendly local Twitter expert tells me ‘males get sun bleached rather quickly’ and assures me this identification is correct. This is precisely why I don’t really ‘do’ bees!)

220831 Bombus lapidarius MALE n Bombus pascuorum

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Bumbling on

09 Thursday Sep 2021

Posted by sconzani in insects, wildflowers

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British bumblebees, Buff-tailed bumblebee, bumblebees, bumblees snoozing on flowers, Common carder bee

On grey and gloomy autumn days, it’s always cheering to see the bumblebees still out and about, even if sometimes they’re actually snoozing on their chosen flowers.

210903 buff-tailed bumble210903 common carder (1)210903 common carder (2)

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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

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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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251/366 Bs and Ts

07 Monday Sep 2020

Posted by sconzani in insects, plants, wildflowers

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Buff-tailed bumblebee, bumblebees, Burnet moth, Common carder bee, insects on teasels, Meadow Brown, Teasel

Bumblebees and Teasels – I’m not sure why but they seem to be a match made in heaven.

200907 bumblebee and teasel (1)
200907 bumblebee and teasel (2)

In fact, bumblebees are the insects I see most often nectaring on Teasels, though the Burnet moths also find Teasel to their taste, as did this Meadow brown butterfly yesterday.

200907 burnet and teasel
200907 meadow brown and teasel

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153/365 The geranium and the bee

02 Sunday Jun 2019

Posted by sconzani in 365DaysWildin2019, flowers, insects, nature, wildflowers

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

#365DaysWild, Bombus pascuorum, British bees, Common carder bee, garden escape, geranium

190602 geranium and bee

This photo was actually taken yesterday because, being the occasional numpty that I am, I didn’t take my camera with me when I went out for a stroll and some groceries this afternoon, after the rain had cleared. The bee is a Common carder (Bombus pascuorum) but I’m not sure about the geranium. Although it’s growing beneath a hedgerow in a rural lane, I think it’s a garden escape, as its description doesn’t fit with the native geraniums in my plant book. Whatever it is, it’s obviously tasty … if you’re a bee.

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138/365 Common carder

18 Saturday May 2019

Posted by sconzani in 365DaysWildin2019, insects, nature, wildflowers

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#365DaysWild, bee, British bees, Common carder bee, dandelion

Keeping it simple today – just me enjoying a bee (a Common Carder bee) enjoying a dandelion.

190518 Common carder bee

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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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