Let's Celebrate Bees!

Today is World Bee Day!

The 20th May has been recognised by the UN as World Bee Day since 2018.

Bees are vital pollinators, not only of many food crops but also of the wildflowers that so many of us enjoy. So, protecting bees can help reduce poverty and hunger, as well as preserve biodiversity.

When many people think of bees as pollinators, they think of Honey Bees. However, there are many other species of bees (and indeed other insects and even some mammals) that are pollinators. Honey Bees are actually domesticated and though they face problems, from disease to pollution, they shouldn’t be the focus of nature conservation, which should instead be looking at preserving native bumblebees, solitary bees and other insects.

There are several bumblebees that you are likely to see in the UK, including the Red Tailed Bumblebee (though its tail os often more orange than red, as in the photo below)

Bumblebees are social nesters, just as are honey bees. Early in Spring you may see large bumblebees flying low. These are Queens looking for somewhere to start a nest. The smaller bumblebees emerge later in the year and include workers and drones.

Not all bees are sociable though. Many bees (around 250 species in the UK) are solitary bees. Actually this can be confusing, as, although solitary bees make individual nesting chambers and don’t nest in hives, often quite a few solitary bees will make their nesting chambers close together.

My favourite solitary bee is the Hairy Footed Flower Bee, and I’ve been very happy to see several of these this year. The male and female of this species look quite different from each other, here’s a male:

and here’s a female:

Though the prize for the best name for a solitary bee has to be the Chocolate Mining Bee, which, sadly, does not mine chocolate! During the COVID lockdown, we found a local colony of Chocolate Mining Bees.

As time went on, we realised there was a bit of a drama going on. A species of nomad cuckoo bee appeared in the area, probably Marshem's Nomad bees (Nomada marshamella).

As their name implies, these bees are nest parasites, laying their eggs in the nests of other solitary bees, in this case, the Chocolate Mining Bees. The photo below shows both species flying into the same hole

Then to complicate things even further, a Dark Edged Bee-fly turned up, a parasitic fly that lays its eggs in the nests of solitary bees.

Which just goes to show that the world of bees is much more complicated than hives of Honey Bees busily making honey for us to enjoy.

The best way to help bees and other pollinators is to plant pollinator friendly plants in your garden if you have one. The UK’s Wildlife Trusts have a brief guide on how to set up a ‘nectar café’ for pollinators.

Interesting Article

I enjoyed this article on the Bioneers website: Making the Invisible Visible: Photographing Native Bees with Krystle Hickman.

Vote for your Favourite Butterfly!

It’s hard to choose a favourite I know, but Butterfly Conservation is asking people in the UK to vote for their favourite butterfly!

30 Days Wild

There’s still time to sign up for the Wildlife Trusts’ annual 30 Days Wild, which takes place across June, offering lots of ideas for how to get closer to nature.

Scottish Wildlife Trust Words of the Wild Competition

Submissions can be in English, Scots or Scottish Gaelic up to 1,000 words long and written in any form: poem, letter, short story, essay, song lyrics – whichever works best to tell a story on the theme of Changing Seasons, closing date 12 July. https://scottishwildlifetrust.org.uk/wordsofthewild/competition/

Green Bridges

Can ‘green bridges’ help animals cross the UK’s motorways in safety? Excellent article on the Guardian newspaper website.

Wild Art Exhibition

Running at The Scottish Gallery until the end of May, Wild is a wonderful exhibition of artwork by Sheila Anderson-Hardy, who is based in the Scottish Borders. You can view the works on the gallery’s website here, but if you’re in Edinburgh, do pop along to the gallery and see them in person. Also, there are some lovely artworks by other artists in the lower level of the gallery, including wonderful seascapes by Dawnne McGeachy. The gallery has a small garden at the back, which is open to the public in good weather.