Bee Walk – Enviro-Mentalist

Bee Festival

Thanks to social media I discovered that Coventry University (their Centre for Agriculture, Water and Resilience) were running a two day bee festival just down the road at Ryton Gardens with the fantastic Steven Falk author of the THE bee ID book – and it was free.

I sat through three brilliant talks in the morning with three interesting and very enthusiastic presenters. First there was the aforementioned Mr Falk. How he crammed in so much information in less than an hour I don’t know. He spoke about his book, discovering new species including the use of DNA to prove an 18th century naturalist right and the different families of bee – I don’t think any of us there will forget the Pantaloon Bee! Next up was Andrew Salisbury from the RHS talking about the trials that they’d carried out at Wisley to find out if native, near-native (i.e. Northern Hemisphere) or exotic (Southern Hemisphere) plants were better for pollinators. The answer – depends on the pollinator. It was very interesting to see how they carried out the trial, such a lot of meticulous hard work. I was also interested to hear that they only saw 80 butterflies over the multi-year survey – I am not sure that butterflies visit gardens in great numbers unless you have a buddleia.

Finally we had Brigit Strawbridge talking about plants and pollination. She almost contained her enthusiasm for bees! Fact of the day that I learnt was that you won’t spot honey bees on lavender unless it is warm as it takes hot weather for the nectaries to fill up enough for the short tongued bees like honey bees to be able to feed. But brambles keep on providing nectar for days – that explains why the bees love my silver stemmed Rubus and shun the lavender for it!

In the afternoon Steven Falk entertained a large crowd on a search for bees around Ryton Organic Gardens – he was hoping for 20, but we were all satisfied with the 17 that we did see – including this Osmia leaiana showing its orange pollen collecting scopa on the underside.

Osmia leaiana-osmia leaiana

The whole festival was put on by BloomsForBees a new initiative promoting Citizen Science and plants for pollinators with a new App and website to help log the bees and the plants they are enjoying.

I had a fantastic day, made some new friends and renewed my love of bees. A recent workshop about solitary bees that suggested that there was no point trying to ID solitary bees unless you were willing to learn latin and kill the bees for subsequent dissection dampened my enthusiasm quite a lot. Steven Falk loves giving bees English names that make them more memorable and showed how much there was to discover without the aid of a killing jar and microscope. And, as for his knowledge of flowers… All I can say is if you get the chance to go on a Bee Walk or Workshop with Steven – grab it and his book which has been sitting unused on my shelf for too long.

Three bees are better than two bees

I decided to do this month’s bee walk on Saturday even though it was a bit breezy and not very warm. I checked the weather forecast and saw cold and potentially rain for the next week or so and figured that the sunshine and a warmer week running up to Saturday might have been enough to tempt the bees out. Unfortunately I was wrong.

During the bee survey (which lasted over an hour) we saw a grand total of three bumblebees (one unidentified, one carder bee and one red-tailed). There was plenty out there for them to eat and we saw plenty of hoverflies and solitary bees, but virtually no bumbles. After we had finished the survey and were walking home we found another two bees, but still five was a bit unexpected.

However, I don’t think the colder weather was to blame, after all, bumbles are furry little creatures and can manage the cold better than a lot of other insects. I think this was a matter of timing. Early in the year bumble queens, the only bumbles to overwinter, emerge from their winter quarters looking for food and somewhere to nest for the year. Once they have enough nutrition they lay create a wax cup that they fill with nectar and create a pollen ball in which they lay their eggs. After a few days these hatch into larvae which then remain in the nest for a few weeks until they metamorphose into a bee. During this time the queen has to brood the eggs and larvae to keep them warm (hence the nectar) and she can only go out foraging for short periods of time. Hence, I think most of the queens were in their nests and the first lot of workers have probably not emerged yet so there is a paucity of bumblebees at the moment.

My first bumblebee walk

This year I signed up to do my first proper wildlife survey (one step up from the annual Big Garden Birdwatch or Big Butterfly Count, both of which I do most years). I have developed an interest in Bumblebees, I’m not sure why, I think it is through a combination of watching them through my macro lens and also because of all the information that is now out there due to the worry over the disappearance of pollinators.

The Bumblebee Conservation Trust launched it’s BeeWalk last year. It is asking volunteers to choose a 1-2km walk (as compared to a lot of surveys where the walks are in randomly allocated squares) and to walk it once a month between March and October, preferably in warm, dry and still conditions, and recording any bees spotted along the way.

I chose my route in an area where I knew I would have no trouble getting to once a month (in fact I tend to visit most parts of it every week) and then refined it to take in as many different habitats as I could. It starts in an industrial estate, heads past some fields, some new houses with some scrubby bits, more fields and more grasslands and houses. Not overly inspirational, but I am hopeful for some bumbles this summer.

What I wasn’t too hopeful about was my chances of seeing some bumbles this weekend. The weather has not been exactly warm, but with the forecast for today looking better than the rest of the week, and March rapidly vanishing into the realms of memory, I thought I’d better get my bum in gear and get out there looking for bees. This is actually a good time of year to start learning about bees because there are only the queens of true bumblebees generally about. There are no males, very few workers and none of those pesky cuckoo bees to confuse an amateur.

However, I was pleasantly surprised as there were actually some bees out. Due to a lack of flowers to be seen on the ground, I had to look up into the trees to find them, and it took a while to get my eye in. However, during the 1 hour walk I managed to spot 8 bees of three different species (and two butterflies, one hoverfly and a lacewing).

Most of the bees, with the exception of two queens which were quartering the ground under some hedgerows, were feeding on willow catkins (I have no idea if these were from goat willow, crack willow or grey willow as I didn’t even realise that there were as many different types until I looked online). When most people think of bees, they think of flowers, and if they think of trees at all they think of cherry blossom. However, at this time of year, the catkins of willow trees are an important source of nectar and pollen for bees and other insects. This became evident when we stood under one of the willows watching the honeybees in the tree. It sounded as though we were stood near to a hive. We spotted more than a dozen and they were so covered in willow pollen that they were glinting in the sunlight, looking as golden as the catkins themselves.

The next time I’m out and about I’ll definitely make a bee-line for the willows and see what’s buzzing.