No pesticides - more bees

Caroline: 'This is what I get beeing in my garden without pesticides'


Most people are familiar with honey bees and bumblebees, but those who observe more closely will have noticed there are smaller furry bees moving from flower to flower. There are around 20,000 described bee species worldwide. Most of these bees are known as solitary bees with only 250 bumblebee species, 9 honey bee species and a number of social stingless bees worldwide. In Britain we have around 270 species of bee, just under 250 of which are solitary bees. These bees can be amazingly effective pollinators and as the name suggests tend not to live in colonies like bumblebees and honey bees.

'As a little head space activity I have been bee watching - something I started in lock down. This is what you get without pesticides'. (Caroline)

Below are photos of some of the interesting early ground-nesting bees which were busy in Caroline's garden in the early Spring sunshine. I have also noticed many in the 3Bs garden in the grass area between the church and the adjacent house.

This is a Yellow-legged Mining bee - a species which has only appeared in the UK about 20 years ago. It is now widespread in Southern England and its range is expanding.
The Yellow-legged Mining bee is polylectic - meaning it can collect pollen from a wide variety of flowers. Their nests in the ground look like small drilled holes, and are often grouped together where vegetation is sparse and the habitat is exposed to the warmth of the sun.



This Ashy Mining bee is easily recognised by its striking black and grey/white markings. Female Ashy-mining bees excavate small tunnels in the earth to make their nests. They are sometimes found nesting in large groups, but are also found in small groups or as single females. Ashy Mining bees feed from a wide variety of spring flowers and shrubs, including buttercups, hawthorn, blackthorn, gorse and fruit trees.




The Painted Nomad bee belongs to the family known as Cuckoo bees - so named because they enter the nests of a host - often the Yellow-legged Mining bee and lay eggs there, stealing resources that the host has already collected. Its grub gobbles up the hosts food supplies and its larva. They are quite easy to spot, lurking around the nests of host species, which will often be a tunnel in dry mud, sandy or grassy bank, or around crevices in logs, tree stumps, walls and rocks - i.e. the locations of solitary bee nests.  

Why not look more closely once the weather warms up again and let us know if you too have solitary bees in your garden?


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