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.

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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.

First wild bee of the year

It was only the 12 February 2019 and I saw my first solitary bee taking nectar from the Viburnum tinus in the garden.

Almost immediately I spotted another one, slightly larger, but not I thought the same species.

The first bee is very much like a male to me and I was keen to get a photograph of the wing venation to identify it to genera level.

I thought I had it and saw the second bee on the ground.

The second bee looked interested in prospecting the area.  Looking out for females, I wondered?  This is under our plum tree and there is already a colony of Andrena cineraria in residence that will put in an appearance later in the year but I could see no sign of any holes and I did not get a wing shot.

Back inside I found that the wing venation photograph was not as good as I had hoped but I thought I could perhaps push through the identification key in Steven Falk’s Field Guide to the Bees of Great Britain and Ireland.  When I turned up with the proposed ID as a bumblebee I realised I had gone adrift somewhere.

Never mind, perhaps another day.

Then the idea came to me that I could perhaps identify the huge white tailed queen that is with me throughout the winter on sunny days.

But no – this too is past my ken.

On the 12th. I had also seen for the first time the orange tailed queen.  I am fairly certain this is Bombus pratorum, the early bumble bee.

Today, 15th. February I saw my first carder queen.  I am not even trying to go closer than that.  I am just happy to see so many bees in the garden in the sunshine.

A good spring for Osmia cornuta

My bee houses have been rewarding me with lots of activity from the Osmia cornuta in the past weeks.  I’m sure they don’t need any help to find hollow nesting places but when they choose my hollow bamboo canes or drilled-out wood I have the pleasure of watching their antics.

The first I know that some bees have hatched is the frantic activity of the males.  This 17 second video gives you an idea of what it looks like.

I admire the tenacity of the males who guard the holes against all comers.  You can get the idea in this 16 second video.

The male can be easily recognised by the little tuft of white hair on his head.  They are around several weeks before the females eventually hatch and then the excitement really mounts.

The mating is not an elegant affair and this pair managed to get stuck in the tube in a sort of impasse where neither was prepared to cede defeat.

I noticed this mating pair under the box and I was surprised by the females stoic non-resistance.  That was until I saw the photograph on the computer and noticed that the male had a firm grip on her wings and back legs.

The male eventually decided to dismount and release her.

The female is a very attractive bee and is larger than the male, which is not uncommon in bees.  She lays her eggs in hollow stems or crevices and supplies the future larvae with pollen for nourishment.  She pushes the pollen firmly in place with the help of two little horns on her head.

The horns are under the antennae and as the horns are black they are difficult to see amongst the black hairs of her head.  They are best seen in a photograph.

Once the females have emerged they begin their frantic search for the perfect hole.  Despite the abundance of choice from our point of view the females have a need to explore.

Eventually one will meet her high requirements and the egg laying and pollen collection will begin.

Pollen collecting is a serious business even if putting it in place can get a bit messy.

In praise of Hebe

I bought my white Hebe for 10 euros 25 in March 2014 to provide ground cover for a difficult dry, sunny patch in my front garden.

It has been money well spent as it flowered in the first year and is flowering again just now.

The honey bees make straight for it.  It is called véronique arbustive in French which sounds a much more charming name for such a beautiful plant.  It belongs to the Scrophulariaceae family of plants which contains many plants that the bees and other insects love for their high nectar content.

But it is not only the honey bees that are attracted to it.

There are lots of wild solitary bees that love it too.  Compare the sizes of the bees in the last two photographs with the size of the flowers.

These little black bees are so tiny that I’m sure some people must mistake them for flies.

It does attract the bee flies too.  This one is a particularly good bumble bee mimic and even buzzes like a bee.  They are, however, parasitic on solitary bees.  Their eggs need to hatch in the nest of a bee or other insect so that the larvae can feed on the larval stages of the host insect.

This bee is particularly attractive as it is a shiny gold colour.  The little slit at the rear of the abdomen shows that it is in the family of Halictidae but I can’t go closer than that.

Peacock butterfly (Inachis io)

The butterflies come for the nectar, too.

This one is a copper.

Perhaps the Sooty Copper (Lycaena tityrus).

The honey bees don’t seem to bother with collecting the pollen from the flowers although I think the little bees are more patient and collect a cream pollen but the bee above has been visiting somewhere else to have collected all that yellow pollen.

Strangely, I see very few bumble bees on the Hebe.  They much prefer the Dahlias that are growing all around it.

So, if you are looking for a plant that doesn’t cost a lot, provides lots of entertainment by attracting bees and butterflies and is easy to care for – I think Hebe ticks all the boxes.

 

The Tetralonia are back!

The Hollyhocks are doing well in the garden and with the sunshine I have found the Tetralonia returning to the Hollyhocks.

I am ever grateful to a commentator, el. gritchie, who pointed me in the right direction when I was totally unaware of this genera.

I love checking out the hollyhocks in the evening as there are always Tetralonia bedded down from the night.  Hollyhocks are Alcea, part of the mallow family Malvaceae.  This would point to an identification of Tetralonia malvae for these bees.  However, I can find out very little information about them and so I could easily confuse them with other species in this genera.

I took the opportunity to pop this poor unsuspecting bee into a plastic pot after it had settled down for the night in one of my hollyhocks.  After a little while in my fridge he was even sleeper and I managed to take some posed photographs.

Unfortunately, I am really none the wiser at the moment but I now have some photographs for future comparison.  He was then placed back in the same Hollyhock.  I have noticed they can return to the same flowerlet on subsequent nights.  The hollyhocks provide good protection from the elements during the night and I suppose there is a fresh supply of nectar ready in the morning.

I have another beautiful plant in the garden that also grows in the woods nearby.  It is Althaea officinalis, that is Guimauve or Marsh Mallow also from the family Malvaceae.

The marshmallow pink colour of the Guimauve pollen makes the female Tetralonia even more spectacular.

A Megachile emerges

On the fourth of September last year I noticed a hole in my bee hotel had been beautifully sealed by carefully arranged sections of rose petals. (See Some Megachile).

On the 24 of May this year I noticed a hole had been chewed in the centre of it.

I could not resist removing the remains of the rose petals to get a better look.  A new little bee was making her way into the world.  However, it was 19.20 and domestic duties called and the light was fading for photographs.

It was 11.04 the next morning before I was able to get back to my bee and she seemed just to be waking up.

Seven minutes later and she was not  making an enormous progress.

Then two minutes later there is movement from the hole above her.

Now which one should I focus on?  The other one is larger and not the same species.  Very interesting but I do not want to lose my rose petal bee.

After a couple of minutes hesitation the big bee launches itself into the air.  Sorry about the blur but it was the best I could do.  I have no idea what species it was.

Back to my rose bee that has been emerging gradually for the last  34 minutes.  She seemed to have a considerable difficulty pulling herself through the little hole she had chewed in her leaf capsule that had been her home since last September.

Finally after watching and taking photographs of her for 35 minutes she emerges onto the outside of the log.

She paused momentarily before taking off.   After this first one, many others emerged from the same hole in the following few days, usually taking less time to exit than this first one.  Sometimes it looked as if the bee next in the queue was giving encouragement from behind because as one took off, another little head appeared at the hole.

However, I am not certain what species of leaf cutting bee she is.  Megachile centuncularis are well known for their use of rose petals which points me in this direction.  It is a common bee and I have seen bees looking like Megachile centuncularis on the bee box last year.

Could this be Mummy emerging from another hole in the log on the 26 August last year?

I base my identification of the bees I saw filling the holes last August on Steven Falk’s wonderful photographs and information

, he says females can be distinguished from some other British species by the bright orange pollen brush that remains orange haired to its tip (black-haired at tip in some others).

Well, even if I cannot be 100 percent sure of my French bees at least I can say I breed beautiful bees!

 

Some Megachiles

Megachiles collect their pollen on brushes under their abdomen.  The colour of these hairs can often be used to help identify the species.

But as with anything else used in identifying bees – it has its limits.  The underside of the bee can look the same colour as the pollen when it is heavily loaded.

That’s a good load of pollen!

They are commonly know as leaf cutter bees as they choose already existing holes and line them with leaves to lay their eggs with a pollen and nectar store before sealing the cell with more leaves.  They choose leaves that can be manipulated easily from trees such as lilac, ash or cherry or flower leaves such as roses or even rose, poppy or geranium petals.

5 September 2013

You can see her determination to fit this piece where she wants it.  This shot was taken in my home-made bee hotel and I recommend trying one out as they are fascinating bees to watch.

This one was a late riser.  Perhaps she had had a busy building job the previous day.  It was 9.49 a.m. on the 26 August 2013 and she was still asleep with the last leaf she had brought home acting as a blanket.

On the 4 September 2013 one of the bees finished off their nest with rose petals – class!

I’m going to go for a photographic ID (i.e. not an expert one) and say that this is Megachile centuncularis on my dahlia at the beginning of October 2013.  These are the bees I believe are nesting in my bee hotels.  In addition, the wing venation checks out with the images I’ve seen.

But there are other bees that look like Megachile around, like this tiny black one on Centaurea nigra in early August.

And this one with green eyes on Bird’s Foot Trefoil in late June (I think probably, Megachile leachella).  Although these last two may be tricking me with their ventral pollen brushes as Osmia and Lithurgus bees have ventral pollen brushes too.

But I’m as satisfied as I can be that she is Megachile centuncularis.

 

Under the plum tree again

It was half past six in the evening and we had just returned from a walk when we decided to have a last look at the back garden.  Passing the plum tree we could see some bee activity where the Andrena flavipes is nesting.  I was wondering if she would come back!

13 March 2014

I’ve already posted about Andrena cineraria in my post It’s in black and white and I took those pictures in the middle of April last year.

I saw several flying low around the grass and one quickly popped down a hole and once inside closed it over by moving the crumbly soil from the sides of the pile over the entrance.  A bit like closing the bedroom curtains in the evening.

I followed one patiently who seemed to be having difficulty finding the hole.

Now it becomes clearer.  This is the male Andrena cineraria.  He was still on the search for an unmated female.  The female only mates once and then becomes unreceptive and goes about nest building and egg laying.  The male’s function is to find a female and mate, not for him the task of burrowing tunnels.

This side shot shows up the difference between the male and the female.  The male is only very slightly smaller than the female but has more white hair.  There are white hairs present on his thorax and tufts of white hair at the top of his femurs.  He has larger tuft of white hair on his head than the female.

This is the first time I have seen the Andrena cineraria male.  I thought the female was beautiful but I think he might be even cuter.

Andrena under the plum tree

I first noticed little mounds of soil under the plum tree in March 2013 and I saw my first mining bee pop its head out and look me in the eye (or so I thought it did!)

I was determined to photograph them and spent quite a bit of time on warmer days crouching under the plum tree watching them.  I did not have a Macro lens then so the photographs were not detailed.  However, it is very pleasant under the plum tree when it is in full flower with the sun shining and the bitter almond perfume of the flowers drifting around you.  I was not able to identify the bees last year, I could not even be sure what genera they belonged to – but I was hooked and I knew where to look for them this year when I was going to be more prepared to identify them.

24.2.14

The weather has been so mild (but very rainy) that when I looked on the first sunny day for ages, on the 23 February, I was surprised to see that the nests had started to appear.  The next day I saw my first bee emerge.

Yes, it was the same bee.

She left the nest too quickly to get a really good photograph but it was much better than last year – and I was very pleased to see the bees had survived in the sodden ground.  Mining bees usually prefer dry, soft soil.  Some like sandy sites or chalky soil or nice sunny banks to nest in.  The soil under my plum tree would never usually be very wet as my garden soil drains rapidly, probably as the region is based on limestone rock.  This year we have had unprecedented rain and many areas have flooded – happily not under my plum tree!

Two days later I was able to get some pictures from above that gave me a clear image of her fore wings.  The wings have three sub marginal cells and the lower border of the third one is longer than the middle one (sorry the red lines are very fine)  In addition, the basal vein meets the longitudinal vein at an acute angle (see better red arrow).  Also, the vein pattern is the same as a photograph of Andrena flavipes in “Bees of Surrey” by David W. Baldock.  So I am satisfied that it is an Andrena.

26.2.14

I don’t know what she has been doing as she seems to have something sticky on her foreleg.

She was taking time to groom herself which gave me time to get some photographs.

I didn’t see her on any flowers and I wondered if she had gathered pollen from the plum tree above us.  The photograph above shows a bumble bee gathering the plum pollen that seems to match but the Sallow (Salix caprea) at the bottom of the garden is also providing the same colour of pollen.  So it is hard to say at the moment what she is using.

7.3.2013

I haven’t seen any parasitic bees this year but last year I saw what I think is Nomada fucata. This further convinces me that my mining bees are Andrena flavipes as these are parasitised by Nomada fucata.

She is a very sweet bee and hopefully I will be out there watching her in another day or two as the rain is forecast to stop and we are even promised some sunshine!