Category: Insects

Red Mason Bee

tawny mining bee“Are you there?” I heard Barbara shouting, “Have I got a bee on my back?!”

No bee in sight: “I was ironing the quilt cover and I heard this buzzing, then it stopped . . . and started again.”

When I helped her fold up the quilt cover earlier we heard no buzzing but the bee must have been trapped in there all the time, narrowly escaping being crushed when we folded the cover and miraculously surviving being flattened by the steam iron. It must have found its way in when the cover was hanging on the clothes line.

We carefully turned the cover inside out and I scooped up the bee in a bug box, none the worse for its adventure.

It buzzed around franticly in the bug box so I sketched it as quickly as possible and snapped away, attempting to take a photograph of it (below).

Field Guide to Bees

bee book
Red mason bee in Field Guide to the Bees of Great Britain and Ireland.

bee field guideThis gives me my first opportunity to use my new Field Guide to the Bees of Great Britain and Ireland, by Steven Falk, illustrated by Richard Lewington.

It’s a female red mason bee, Osmia bicornis but from my photographs and very quick sketch, I’d labelled it in my sketchbook as a tawny mining bee. Tawny mining bees make their nests in sandy paths and on bare patches on sunny hillsides but I haven’t seen them in the immediate area however every year I see the mason bees nesting in old walls and cavities in the lime mortar between the bricks in our house wall. We usually have to rescue a few that have found their way into the house.

With apologies for the photography, it was buzzing madly around the bug box.
With apologies for the photography, it was buzzing madly around the bug box.

Links

Field Guide to the Bees of Great Britain and Ireland

Steven Falk, artist, naturalist and photographer.

Bee Moth

bee moth

Despite clearing out so many cocoons last autumn we’re still finding that the odd bee moth is emerging from some hidden corner or another. We’ve had no more than half a dozen appear fluttering around the living room in the last month but recently they’ve been mainly the males so today when I found a female I took a closer look. When I spotted her by the back door, my first thought was that I’d found a snout moth because of the prominent palps projecting at the front, which the male lacks.

bee mothBee moths, Aphomia sociella, feed on old cells and debris in the nests of bumble bees and wasps. Last summer we had literally thousands emerge via cracks in the floor when we had a bumble bees’ nest behind the air brick at the front of the house. They pupated, spinning tough sticky silken cocoons, often bunched together, in every dry, dark corner they could find. We ended up buying a new carpet!

Link: Bee moths make their first appearance in May last year.

Song Thrush Anting

anting

8.30 p.m. The brown ants that nest under the paving stones at the end of the drive are running around excitedly on this still, warm summer evening, as they do when the flying ants (the queens and the males) are preparing to take off on their nuptial flights. This activity has attracted a song thrush which is sitting with its tail bent beneath it, enjoying an anting session.

anting

With all the recent ant activity, I was thinking the other day that it’s a long time since I saw this behaviour; in fact this might be the first time that I’ve actually seen it in real life, rather than in a wildlife documentary.

After the song thrush had finished, I went out to take a closer look at the ants and there were no winged ants amongst them. Perhaps they took flight earlier in the day, or perhaps this was a false alarm from overexcited worker ants.

When I first uploaded this post, I identified it as a mistle thrush but the arrow-shaped spots show that it’s a song thrush.

Red-tailed Bumblebees Cooling their Nest

Red-tailed bees at nest holeWe’ve had record temperatures today and the red-tailed bumblebees in the nestbox near the back door have been making efforts to cool their nest. The bee on the right with its rear end to the nest hole was fanning its wings.

This bee was fanning its wings but so fast that they were barely visible.
This bee was fanning its wings but so fast that they were visible only as a blur.

Every time that I looked out there was a bee on duty, acting as a fan. The first time I noticed them doing this, at 11 o’clock this morning, there were two vibrating their wings right next to the hole but the colony was so busy that bees returning or emerging kept pushing them out of the way. After that there was only ever one on duty and there would be breaks when three bees emerged at once.

red-tailed beesHoney bees have been observed taking water into the hive to help with cooling but I couldn’t tell if the red-tails were doing this.

In the spring we saw blue tits and house sparrows taking an interest in the box. Last year the sparrows ousted a pair of blue tits that had started nesting but the red-tailed bees are definitely in charge this year. Barbara watched them chase off a wasp which was trying to get into the nest.

Bee Moths

Bee moths are a little under 2 centimetres long. I think this is a female.
Bee moths are a little under 2 centimetres long. I think this is a female.

bee mothaWe’ve been noticing little brown moths appearing mysteriously in our living room for the last few weeks, so nondescript that we didn’t even attempt to identify them before releasing them outside. They often appeared by the door so I was starting to suspect that they might be connected with the bumblebee nest behind the now defunct air-brick immediately beneath this corner of the room.

They’re bee moths, Aphomia sociella, the larva of which eat debris such as old wax cells in the nests of bees, which is a useful service for the bee except they will also eat bees’ brood. They pupate in tough silky cocoons, which can be found tucked away as a mass.

Bumblebees

bumblebee and aquilegiagarage off Queen Street, HorburybumblebeeBumblebees are attracted to the tiny flowers of cotoneaster rather than the showy clematis that is climbing over the bush. A smaller, faster bumblebee visits the flowers of aquilegia.

bramble leaf mineA leaf mine in a bramble leaf maps the life so far of the insect that made it which was probably the larva of a small moth.

Bumblebees in the Blue Tit Box

 bumble beebee at the nestboxWe’ve seen blue tits and sparrows taking an interest in the nestbox on the wall just outside the back door but it looks as if this year bumblebees have taken possession.

grubberThe rosettes of leaves of ribwort plantain and dandelion are spreading like a colony of green starfishes over the corner of the lawn that gets the most trampling by the shed. The rosettes are ground-hugging so that they escape the blades of the mower, so I try taking some of them out using a tool called a grubber which I push in and rotate to lift out the whole plant, taproot and all. taproot

There’s then a small hole that needs filling with soil. It might be a good idea to spread a bit of grass seed on the bare patch too, but I’m sure that bumblebeeat this time of year the surrounding grass will soon spread to fill the gap.

Brimstone

brimstoneThere are a number of freshly emerged peacock butterflies around but a  more unusual visitor to the garden today was a brimstone. This pale yellow species, often the first to emerge in spring, is the one that gave its name to the group as a whole.

Common Blue

common blueIt’s turned cooler so I get a chance to draw a male common blue before he becomes active. Birdsfoot trefoil is one of the foodplants of its larvae.

There’s a hint of violet in the blue of its wings. Common blue females are brown.

Sloe Shield Bug

sloe bugAlthough I started painting this sloe bug, Dolycoris baccarum, as leaf green I soon realised that it had a purplish cast. According to the book, it’s very hairy when seen under the lens but it was so active as it trundled around the bug box that I wasn’t able to get that close. It never stayed under the magnifying glass in the lid long enough. It had found its way into the bathroom overnight.

As well as sloe (blackthorn) these shield bugs will feed on the flowers and fruit of other members of the rose family. This one might have come from a thicket of blackthorn a hundred yards from our house in the corner of the meadow by the edge of the wood.

Sloe bugs are common on sand dunes.

sloe bugFrantically trying to escape, like a mime artist doing a glass box act, it occasionally fell on its back as it attempted to climb the sides so I gave it its freedom, taking a macro shot from which I made the pencil drawing.