Tree bumblebees

I’ve got a colony of tree bumblebees nesting under my eaves. A species which has recently colonised the UK and has become very common.

Lots of them foraging in the garden.

Distinctive ginger thorax and a white tail.

Off in search of the next flower.

A Vestal Cuckoo Bee

I found this bumblebee in the garden a couple of days ago and it is not all that it seems. The wings are darkened and the back between the wings is almost devoid of hairs. In addition the buff, yellow, black and white patterning is a little unusual.

This is not a bumblebee, it is a cuckoo bee – the Vestal Cuckoo Bee (Bombus vestalis).

Cuckoo bees are very closely related to bumblebees but behave rather differently – as their name suggest they behave the the bird of the same name. They lay their eggs in the nest of a bumblebee (in the case this species the buff-tailed bumblebee (Bombus terrestris) and then feed off the host’s food stores and are fed by the host’s worker bees.

The Early Bumblebee

The Early Bumblebee (Bombus pratorum) is a common species in our countryside and gardens.

Distinctive yellow, black and red markings make this an easy species to identify.

Off to the next flower.

Moths and a bumblebee

The numbers of moths in my trap are beginning to build up with the milder weather.

This is an Early Thorn – love the beady eye!

This is a Chestnut – lovely orangey colour and distinctive black marks

This is a Brindled Pug – pugs are not very easy to identify ….

This is a Clouded Drab – an unkind name perhaps

And finally there was a rather sleepy Tree Bumblebee in the trap as well – a recent colonist to Britain but one that has been very successful and spread far and wide.

A very tired and cold bumblebee

There was a very cold and tired buff-tailed bumblebee in the moth trap this morning.

I brought her in doors and feed her a bit of sugary water whilst she warned up a bit and then I let her go

There was also a rather smart Hebrew Character which don’t normally emerge until March

Along with a number of Common Quaker moths

The Large Narcissus Fly

So named as it can be a pest in commercial bulb fields as the larvae feed on daffodils. In my garden (and most of lowland Britain) however it probably feeds on the odd bluebell and isn’t a problem.

The Large Narcissus Fly (Merodon equestris) is a hoverfly and is yet another one of the species which is a bumblebee mimic (also see here and here). The species has several forms to mimic different species of bumblebee. This animal is the form narcissi and is a mimic of the Common Carder Bumblebee.

The Common Carder Bumblebee

Both insects are now on the wing in Devon and both are quite common.

Tree bumblebees take up residence

Yesterday I noticed half a dozen bees ‘dancing’ around the guttering at my house. I had never seen such behaviour before so I watched for a while and then temporarily caught one of the bees in a net to see what it was. It turned out to be a tree bumblebee.

The bees were flying around this guttering

A bee going up under the guttering and making a nest.

I found a very useful piece on the Bumblebee Conservation Trust’s website on tree bumblebees which explained what was going on – see here. The ‘dancing’ of the bees is known as nest surveillance and is a pre-mating display. The dancing bees are the drones, in due course a queen will emerge and mate with a male. This behaviour appears to be unique to tree bumblebees.

Tree bumblebees first naturally arrived in the UK in 2001 and have spread widely since then. I photographed this individual last June on Lundy.

This photo shows the very distinctive marking of a tree bumblebee – the ginger thorax and the white tail. It will be interesting to see if the colony under the guttering develops and thrives.

If you are interested in bumblebees you might like to download (for free) a new publication on the Bumblebees of Cornwall and Scilly by Patrick Saunders. It is very informative and useful. The only thing to note is that it is a large file (38 mb). You can download it from here.

The cover illustration is by the Dartmoor naturalist and artist John Walters.

 

 

Garden comes alive

For the last few weeks spring has been unfolding at a steady pace, today my garden has burst into life. There are butterflies, solitary bees, bumblebees, hoverflies, beetles and bugs everywhere. I even surprised a grass snake on the lawn which promptly slid off into the undergrowth. I’m sure who was most startled ….. I have managed to photograph a few species.

This is a red-headed Cardinal beetle (Pyrochroa serraticornis)

This is a capsid or mired bug called Dryophilocoris flavoquadrimaculatus

A green-veined white feeding on a Geranium

This splendid beast is a hoverfly which is mimicking a common carder bumblebee – it is called Criorhina floccosa

I have never seen this species before and it is rather a scarce species usually associated with woodland – the huge protected oaks in my garden might have helped lure it in.

Finally I found this and to be honest I don’t know what it is – any ideas anyone?

Christmas Full Moon and a bumblebee

Yesterday we had a full moon – the first time there has been such a lunar phenomenon in 38 years. The next full moon on Christmas Day won’t happen again until 2034.

I managed to get this shot last thing on Christmas Eve

Ironically the first full moon of the winter is known as the Full Cold Moon – yesterday it was of course still incredibly mild

So mild that I found this buff-tailed bumblebee out and about in Exeter

Neonics and butterflies

Yesterday a scientific paper was published which asked whether the widespread use of neonicotinoid insecticides were linked to the decline of a number of widespread butterflies. The neonicotinoid insecticides are already highly controversial as they have also been linked to the decline of bees. You can download and read the paper here.

The paper concludes “The declines in butterflies have largely occurred in England, where neonicotinoid usage is at its highest. In Scotland, where neonicotinoid usage is comparatively low, butterfly numbers are stable. Further research is needed urgently to show whether there is a causal link between neonicotinoid usage and the decline of widespread butterflies or whether it simply represents a proxy for other environmental factors associated with intensive agriculture.”

The study was conducted by academics from the Universities of Sterling and Sussex, the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology and Butterfly Conservation. All very worrying – more research is clearly needed to untangle the story further.