Category: Garden

Air Bee & Bee

A swarm of several hundred honey bees arrived late afternoon yesterday and found a cavity by the bathroom sink waste pipe. A few found their way into the bathroom.

We phoned a beekeeper who offered to come and remove them, using a one-way trap that would lead them out into a hive where eventually the queen would follow them, always the last one out. If we covered every bee-sized hole in the bathroom, we’d be safe using it. As honey bees can squeeze through a 6mm hole that involved a lot of masking tapes, scrunched up newspaper and one strip of cardboard under the sink.

A few workers found their way into the back bedroom yesterday but unfortunately most of them didn’t survive until this morning, when I released them.

Today though they’ve moved on. There was a bit of activity at breakfast time but nothing like when they arrived and we saw nothing all day. In the afternoon I kept watch for a full fifteen minutes, just to check we hadn’t missed them.

The beekeeper advised us to fill the cavity as soon as possible, using steel wool or aluminium foil and also to block any alternative holes they might use. Our group might have been the scouts and the main swarm might arrive later. It’s amazing how many drilled holes for aerial cables and former pipe fittings we spotted.

Yorkshire Fog

Yorkshire fog sketchbook page

Yorkshire fog and cat’s ear growing around the pond.

Barbara spotted the remains of a kill by the hedge amongst the border plants: the remains of a juvenile goldfinch, only the wings and legs and a scattering of breast feathers remained. A brown long-haired cat that visits our garden and sits in wait by the bird table is the number one suspect as we haven’t spotted sparrowhawks swooping into the garden for a few months.

sketching by the pond

Buff Ermine

garden wildlife

When I’m gardening I keep my Olympus Tough in my pocket, with LED macro diffuser fitted. These were drawn from some recent photographs.

Bumblebees

bumblebee sketches

Three approaches to foraging on the herb bed this afternoon: the small double ochre-striped ones tackle the thyme on fast forward, the larger all-ochre thorax bumblebee makes a more thorough job of the chives flowers while the small red-tailed bumblebee – possibly a drone – seems to be settling down for the night on its chive flower.

sketching bumblebees

Moth

moth

Prominent moths have tufts emerging from between the wings and there’s also a tail tuft, just visible in my drawing. This moth, caught in the moth trap a couple of nights ago (and released the next day) didn’t have feathery antennae so it’s most likely to be a female.

moth

So far I haven’t narrowed it down to a particular species. To me it’s closest to the iron prominent.

It’s about 1.5 cm long.

Bee Orchid, Date Palm

Bee orchid, date palm and the laburnum arch at Brodsworth Hall this morning.

Thanks to the English Heritage garden staff for pointing out the bee orchid which were growing on a south-facing grassy bank, left un-mown, alongside the formal beds and lawns.

The date palm grows in the shelter of the sunken gardens, at the sunnier end.

Every Flower Counts

In this year’s ‘Every Flower Counts’ survey at the end of ‘No Mow May’ I’ve got double the amount of germander speedwell flowers that I counted last year.

During the time it took to count the 167 speedwell flowers, I saw one pollinator, a common summer migrant hoverfly, Eupeodes corollae. This is looks like the male.

Plant Life informs me:

Your nectar sugar could support…

14 honeybee workers for a day
4 hour-long foraging flight for an adult bumblebee
1 adult bumblebees to fly for a day

Plant Life

Brown-lipped Snail

brown-lipped snail

6th May: I picked up a dried up sycamore leaf from a shady corner of John’s garden and found this brown-lipped snail, Cepaea nemoralis, hidden beneath attached to the leaf. We had a dry April so the snail might have settled down to a period of inactivity known a aestivation.

Spiderlings

spiderlings
Olympus E-M10 II DSLR with 60 mm 1:2.8 digital ED macro lens

Two little clusters of spiderlings, hanging low down by our front door.

spiderlings
Olympus Tough TG-4 fitted with an LED diffusing ring for macro photography.

When I went in close with my Olympus Tough, I must have caught some of the surrounding strands of silk because the spiderlings started to disperse. They soon clustered together again.