Coming into land....near a man-made surface!

Whilst sampling the other day, on our man-made surface, we came across these two insects - the White-tailed Bumble Bee Bombus lucorum and the Maybug (Cockchafer) Melolontha melolontha. We team thought the man-made surfaces would produce little in terms of insect specimens - we stand to be corrected!

Gardening for gold!

Belated well done to everyone involved in the Chelsea garden entry - sounds like you all had a great time, shame we lowly workers were unable to come down and see it in all its glory (well, someone has to keep things ticking over ;) ).  Bill's hat is inspiring, and we plan to make our own, as soon as this darned rain stops.

You can read more here:  http://www.fbs.leeds.ac.uk/research/bulletin/index.php?id=1179

Sampling with 13 ducklings

In one of our gardens we were amazed to find 13 little ducklings and their mom swimming happily in the little garden pond. On our arrival all 13 ducklings came running towards us as they expected to be fed.
Luckily all ducklings soon returned to the pond and we could start our sampling.

But it turned out that we had to compete with the ducklings for pollinators as they took great interest in catching flies and other insect.

Return to the graveyard bees, and more B. hypnorum action

We returned to the scene of the Andrena nest today, hoping to follow up that sighting of so many little Andrena bees queueing up to emerge from an underground void in a graveyard in north Leeds.  What we found was a distinct lack of Andrena - only one was seen around the nest entrance, over the whole time we were on site.  What we did see in relative abundance, again, was more Nomada bees - several quartered the ground around the entrance to the underground void, and seemed to be investigating small round holes around the edge of the slab, as well as descending into the void itself (though not staying long!)

Nomada descending into communal Andrena nest (look really, really hard!)

A further group were spotted hawking around a memorial stone at the other end of the cemetery - small, brown and yellow, and far too fast on the wing to capture on film! 

And following on from yesterday's woodland coupling, we were lucky enough to spot yet another  B. hypnorum queen with piggybacking regent flying outside the nest up in the corner of the Bio Sciences building on campus.  They made a few victory fly-pasts, then disappeared into a nearby alder tree.  It must just be that time of year, I guess!

Comings and goings at the front door

Back in the entrance (a hole in the concrete above the doorway), others were queueing up to come out, or maybe just to watch the goings-on outdoors. 

Some bee-haviour observations #2

And this is a snippet of what it's all about! 

Tree bumblebees (Bombus hypnorum) just hanging about in a wood in Leeds this afternoon - well spotted, Kirsty!

Some bee-haviour observations #1

This has been the second day of seriously scorching weather - 23 degrees today in the shade, in Leeds - a far cry from the wet and gloomy start to the season, and the heat resulted in some super-charged and speedy pollinators!  We've been out in gardens and parks today, and have seen a lot of little Nomada bees.  These are parasites on other bee species - they lay their eggs inside the nests of species like Andrena fulva.  Though they sport warning colours of yellow and dark brown, they weren't interested in us at all, and we were able to get quite up close and personal with some.  They were mostly flying low, and showing a lot of interest in the cracks in the paving in this very urban garden...

The reason came obvious when a dark brown Andrena flew in and disappeared down a nest hole on the edge of a spread of ornamental gravel - to be swiftly followed by one of the Nomadas.

Later, as we idled about on a grassy hillside enjoying some dappled shade, we spotted two more Nomada bees quartering the ground - perhaps they were looking for the nest of one of the silver-ruffed Ashy Mining Bees that was repeatedly returning to a nearby grassy tussock...

It occurs to me, that I must have been seeing at least some of these bees pretty much every Spring and Summer, for as long as I've been rambling about under sunny skies - but not realised what was in front of my eyes.  It seems you only need to start looking, and once you've seen one, you might just be lucky, and see many more :)

Busy Beetles

We don`t really know what all these little beetles did in this one Ranunculus flower but probably they were warming up as it was still quite cold. They probably also have pollen for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

The weather is getting better now and tomorrow promises a fine and warm day. Good for pollinator sampling!