Ivy bees and Saffron

Last year I protected some Ivy bee nests in the garden. So, at the end of August I removed the cardboard that had been covering the patch to stop the weeds overrunning it.

I did not see a bee until the first of September but I noticed the holes and I was thrilled that the eggs had hatched.

By the fifth of October is was getting difficult to count the number of holes but I think there must have been ten to twelve which is a doubling of last years numbers but it is not a large congregation for Ivy bees. I did see more holes near the carport which won’t get disturbed either this year.

On the 28 September I saw a possible Epeolus cruciger flying around the nests but unfortunately the photograph is not good enough for a positive identification. I did not attempt to capture it but I never saw it again. These Epeolus are cuckoo bees and like the bird cuckoo will lay their eggs in the nest of others. In this case it will be the nest of the Ivy bee and its young will profit from the stores of pollen that the Ivy bee has laid up for her young.

The Ivy bees are so called as they can be found gathering pollen on the Ivy at this time of year and many studies believe that if Ivy (Hedera helix) is available then the Ivy bees will keep to this single pollen when available. Other studies feel that the Ivy bees are more flexible toward which pollen they gather.

My Saffron patch is just beside my Ivy bees holes and they are a favourite pollen resource for the Ivy bees that strip the yellow anthers of the pollen. There is plenty of Hedera helix growing wild in the woods near here and I am the first person to grow Saffron in this area.

I cannot be sure that they are my Ivy bees but it seems a fair supposition that the bees could miss such a convenient source of nectar and pollen.

There is no problem with sharing such bounty between bees. These two just budge to make room for each other.

The acrobatics makes interesting watching too.

There is plenty to share.

No species is excluded.

The bounty will be shared until the bulbs stop flowering.

A Bumblebee Nest

In the far left hand corner of our front garden is a hole in the wall about half a metre from the ground. You can see it at the bottom left hand corner of the above photo.

It was Kourosh that noticed the bees coming and going from the hole.

There was a lot of coming and going and the bees were bringing lots of pollen so it was already an established colony.

The bumblebees did not have far to go for pollen as we have lots of Hypericum just a metre from their nest.

Over the Hypericum is growing some “wild” Sweet Peas. We brought the seeds from flowers growing wild in the south of France but they have no perfume and I believe the real wild Sweet Pea is perfumed. However, these flowers are vigorous and clamber all over the Hypericum every year, yet I have been unable to raise U.K. bought Sweet Pea seeds.

Sweet Peas are in the Fabaceae family and their flowers attract the bumblebees.

These bees look to me like garden bumblebees or Bombus hortorum, you can see its long tongue, that it sometimes does not retract while passing from flower to flower for the nectar.

While watching the bumblebees I noticed a little butterfly with trailing tails.

Checking on Google it looks like Lampides boeticus, also known as the long-tailed pea blue. Both names are quite a mouthful and, as always, please let me know if I get anything wrong.

It is always exciting to find something different in the garden but the bumblebee nest is a real plus for me.

Ivy bees nesting in the garden

Last year I found two Ivy bee (Colletes hederae) making their nests in the little bit of garden I attempt to grow some herbs in. My Lemon Balm is very vigorous and has been growing very close to the nest site so have tried to clear an area to give the bees plenty of opportunity to tunnel into my dry, sandy soil.

The tiles were placed on the edge of the grass to mark out the area where I had seen the two nests. This year there are two nests in the corner of the site and another three under the edge with the tiles.

Another bee has decided on tunnelling vertically near the corner with the tiles. That makes six holes in all!

Not a bad increase over the year. After all activity has stopped I will cover the area with carboard just to ensure I do not dig it out by accident.

Ivy bees will typically nest in areas where there is scant vegetation such as forest paths, like the photograph above taken in a woodland path near the house. In 2014 I found a large nesting site of Ivy bees, it was about 15 metres long stretching along a forest path, but now it no longer exists. I have looked for the past few years and only found a small number of nests situated on the same path but nearer a road. The path has become a popular track for quad bikes in recent years so perhaps the large nest site was destroyed.

I just hope the site in our garden thrives, although the ivy flowers have not done as well this year because of the extreme drought we have been experiencing this summer.

The garden March 2022

It was actually the 26 February that I saw my first male Osmia cornuta.

It was not until 19 March that I saw the first female. She reminds me a bit of Winnie the Poo trying to get into Rabbit’s hole. She is much more substantially built than her mate and he has had to wait a long time for her to hatch out, as usual.

She gets straight onto the task of laying eggs and providing each one with enough stores of pollen to grow into a new bee. She goes in head first with her load of pollen neatly attached to her hairy abdomen and then comes out after she has pressed the pollen in place with her head, still with the pollen grains adhering to her.

I have not seen as many of these bees as in previous years.

Kourosh discovered a suspect tiny hill of soil just outside our front door and marked it for me with some twigs. As I passed by this morning, I noticed the soil quiver – just as I had seen molehills move on occasion.

The hole is completely covered in the evening so I quickly rushed in for my camera and sat to wait. I was rewarded by the appearance of this little head. After a few tentative ups and downs, she eventually flew out.

I think she might be an Andrena fulva. I usually see her later on the raspberries so I would be interested in what she favours at the moment. I will keep my eyes open for her now.

We have discovered another bulb worth planting in pots to attract the bees. Puschkinia are like mini Hyacinth but their flowers are more open for the bees. In addition they are gently perfumed. I find them a little small and pallid but if you like to attract pollinators to your patio you might like to try them.

All the bees have a huge amount of pollen to choose from at this time. The Willow is just about finished but the woods are full of white Sloe blossom. Gardens are full of flowering fruit trees and our honeybees are working hard bringing in the pollen.

Check out this video (16 secs.) to see the different colours of pollen they are bringing in https://youtu.be/nX3C_QTvvYM. And now HERE is the correctly posted video. Thank you Ann and Julian :).

A new Megachile in the garden

It was a beautiful day on Sunday (18.7.2021) and I thought I would have a look at the bees on the flowers in the garden. I saw one on the Cosmos that I did not recognise.

Luckily I got a shot of the wing venation, and it is luck for me because it depends on the angle of the sun and how long the bee will stay in place.

The two sub marginal cells allowed me to confirm that it was a Megachile.

I would always like to go further but it is impossible to be precise from a photograph and I am not an entomologist, so I do not capture the bees for a closer look.

He looked like a male but I could not recall ever seeing him before but I had seen photographs on the internet.

This made me wonder if it was a Lithurgus chrysurus male. These are Mediterranean bees – but I am further north in the Charente Maritime.

They build their nests in dead, dry often rotting wood or even cow pats. Well, we have plenty of rotting wood left around the garden and certainly in the woods around us. Another feature is the extra long tongue which facilitates getting nectar from some plants such as the Centaurea. Cosmos is in the same family of Asteraceae so perhaps my bee is happy with my cosmos. He certainly had a long tongue.

So, I cannot be certain of my ID but he is very welcome in the garden and I am fascinated by his beautiful green eyes.

First female of the season

I had always thought the Osmia cornuta males had to wait several weeks before the females appeared. So I was very surprised to see the first female Osmia cornuta, yesterday, the 4 February 2021. That is exactly one week after I saw the first male Osmia emerge.

She was actually on the ground in the tight embrace of a male Osmia cornuta when I noticed her.

With the digital camera you have no need to take a note of the time you take the photograph so I had a good record of how long she remained subjugated. It looked fairly consensual if you accept the fact that the male had her wings tightly gripped closed. She was able to walk with her burden up a shooting clematis. She is much larger than the male and I think she could have manage to release herself had she chosen.

They were just under the bee box which was being patrolled by the usual bunch of hopeful males. The other males eventually spotted the female and tried some dive bomb tactics to dislodge their rival.

Interesting as it all was, I had to leave them at it and go in for lunch. The last photograph I took of them was still on the Clematis after 52 minutes of togetherness.

I have better photographs of the female on an old blog “A good spring for Osmia cornuta”.

I will now have to see if she chooses my boxes to make her nest.

They are out!

Yesterday I thought I saw one fly past the bee houses. Today I had my camera at the ready and I saw the first male Osmia cornuta starting their search for a mate.

I never tire of seeing the first faces peer out of the holes.

It takes a little while to work up the courage to come totally out.

The next step is a good groom. He has managed to chew his way out of the capsule his mother so carefully sealed last summer with grains of sand like material. However, squeezing through his exit has left him covered in fine debris and he must smarten up before he competes with the other males for a female.

It will be a long wait, usually a few weeks before the females emerge. This year spring has started early. February 24 is an early date for the Osmia cornuta to emerge.

I have noticed a lot of “Gendarme” beetles (Pyrrhocoris apterus) this year. Seemingly they eat dead or dying insects. I hope they act as housekeepers for the bee houses as it is not only the bees that use them.

This little wasp seemed over awed by its larger more forceful neighbour.

Shield bugs have also been very evident this winter. It has been a wet winter but not very cold, so perhaps it was a good winter for them.

This one might be a Gorse Shield Beetle (Pyrrhocoris apterus), there is certainly plenty of gorse around here.

I got these hints on the beetles from the marvellous sites of Chris Luck. I have found his sites so helpful and he keeps adding additional information.

First solitary bee of 2021 (not counting bumbles)

That’s not a honey bee!

I was watching idly yesterday (16 February 2021) while the honeybees were feasting on the winter flowering heather. The bee in question was the same size as our honeybees but looking at it closely it was most definitely not a honeybee.

I was very impressed that it was my husband that spotted the bee as I am the one that is more interested in the solitary bees.

I thought he was very handsome and his long antenna made me think he was a male.

Just as I was thinking that you could never be sure – another bee arrived and he leapt on top of her – which settled the question. She was larger and after a few brief couplings they both flew off. He was much more gentle than some of the very aggressive males, perhaps there was no competition around.

I desperately tried to get some good photographs of the female but with no luck. This is the best and the orange tibia hairs leave more questions than answers.

The identity of the bee has been solved by El Gritche! He has commented on my blog A French Garden and says they are Colletes and probably succinctus! So kind of him to leave a comment! I should have thought about Colletes on heather.

I did not get a good shot of the wing venation but I think they are Andrena. I checked and there are 65 species of Andrena in the U.K. (probably more in France.) So with so little information I can give no identification.

It was a lovely moment though just watching them!

A stowaway

a french garden

The saffron has just about finished now and I am only getting two or three blooms a day. I took this picture on the 21 October 2020 to show the average daily “harvest” I was getting at this period.

I always leave collecting the saffron until late afternoon so that the bumble bees can enjoy them before I pick them. However, after I collected flowers, I got busy and left the bowl until the next morning.

In the morning I started to open up the flowers and put the pistils to one side to dry. Then I saw my stowaway!

A little bee was in the saffron! At least this time I can be sure of my identification down to the family level. It is a female from the Halictidae family as you can see the groove or rima at the end of her abdomen. She is likely a Halictus…

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July 2020 Beehouse Update

I have numerous beehouses around the garden.  I admit the ones I watch most are where I pass more frequently and where a lot of Osmia nest in springtime, so the action is difficult to miss at those ones.  This beehouse. however, requires some nimble footwork over carefully positioned stepping stones to reach it, so I confess I can miss the comings and goings.

I was first alerted on the 4.7.20 by an Anthidium maniculatum, or wool carder bee, cleaning out one of the holes in the wooden log.  She is a favourite of mine as she is such a hard working and long suffering bee.  If you would like to see more on how she nests and brings in her cotton, I have a post on the wool carder bee here.

When I looked more closely at the house I saw that a lot of the holes had been filled.  The hole above had clearly been closed with pieces of leaf which meant I had missed the leaf-cutting bees last year.

There was also some little bees going into other holes that had been filled with a crystalline filling.

All very confusing and then a few days later I noticed the leaf hole was open and different bees were coming and going through the gap.  I presume this was the male bees attracted to the new females trying to get in first.  They moved too quickly to get a good photograph of them.

The female leaf cutter bees started to clean out their selected holes or tubes.  Any rubbish was gripped by their mandibles and taken far from the nest.

I noticed this leaf cutter cleaning out a hole that had been used by the wool carder bee last year.  Or maybe it was not last years wool as it looks quite clean, maybe there can be a bit of rivalry for a particularly comfy hole?

There are two bees inside this hole so it is difficult to see exactly what is happening.  Some males getting over excited at the prospect of newly hatched females?

The tubes were being filled at the same time.  Some of the leaf cutter bees mash up the leaves and you can see the fresh green surface of the filled tube under the bee in this photo.  I’ll have to look earlier next year to see all the different bees.

The new leaf hole was repaired by 14.7.20.  It was a week of frantic activity and so easy to miss if you are busy in the garden or elsewhere.  Do check in your bee houses as often the holes are not filled exactly flush to the outside of the log or the tube.  Often tell tale trails of pollen leading from the holes alerts you to the activity.  It may not be only yellow pollen as I saw the leaf cutters bringing in pink and lilac pollen which particularly delights me.

I did track a leaf cutter down to the other side of the garden on my Anisodontea, which maybe the source of the pink pollen.  She was carefully cutting a small piece from a fading leaf.  There were plenty of green leaves but she chose the drying one.  I am not sure if this was the same species I was seeing in my houses.

I am pretty sure this is one of the leaf cutters I have in my boxes.

I noticed a suspicious looking visitor.  I do not know what it is but it could be one of the many insects that is parasitic on the bees,

I am looking forward to seeing them when they hatch next year.  I only saw the black insect once.

Watching the bees make their nests is fascinating.  I was watching three different species using the box at the same time!  If you do not have a bee house I recommend one – not for the bees as I am sure they are capable of find plenty of suitable places – but for the sheer pleasure of sharing these brief moments with them.