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Tag Archives: red mason bee

Bumbles, Masons and Miners

10 Sunday May 2015

Posted by theresagreen in Bryn Euryn Nature Reserve, bumblebees, Little Orme, Local Nature Reserves, Nature of Wales, Rhiwledyn Nature Reserve

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

buff-tailed bumblebee, common carder bee, early mining bee, mason bees, mining bees, red mason bee, red-tailed bumblebee, tawny mining bee, tree bumblebee

Early spring is a good time to look out for some of the different species of bees found locally, catching them before they settle in to producing the next generation. On recent outings Bryn Euryn was particularly well blessed with bumblebees and some other interesting species and the Little Orme brought an unexpected treat so I thought I’d put them all together.

The Buff-tailed bumblebee- Bombus terrestris is the largest of our native bumblebees. Queens, workers and males have a dirty golden yellow collar near the head and one on the abdomen.

Buff-tailed bumblebee

Bryn Euryn – Buff-tailed bumblebee queen

The queen’s tail is an off white/buff colour which can sometimes appear orange. The queens are busy establishing new colonies and may be seen collecting pollen to stock it and crawling around on the ground where they nest in burrows underground.

Buff-tailed bumblebee queen on the ground

Bryn Euryn-Buff-tailed bumblebee queen on the ground

I didn’t spot any workers or males on the days I was out and about, if I had these would both be smaller than the queens and look slightly different as workers have a white tail and that of the males is white ringed with a buff line.

Red-tailed Bumblebee- Bombus lapidarius queens are also establishing new colonies and can be seen feeding and collecting pollen from flowers and also crawling around on the ground as they too nest underground.

Red-tailed bumblebee queen with full pollen baskets

Red-tailed bumblebee queen with full pollen baskets

Queens are distinctive with their black bodies and red tails and are large, between 20 -22mm long which is a similar length to that of the Buff-tailed bumblebee queens, but the red-tailed is less bulky.

Red-tailed Bumblebee queen emerging from a patch of ivy-leaved speedwell

Bryn-Euryn -Red-tailed Bumblebee queen emerging from a patch of ivy-leaved speedwell

There are Red-tailed bumblebee workers about too. They have the same colouring as the queens but are smaller, varying in size from 1-16mm in length, with some early workers being no bigger than a house fly.

They have comparatively short tongues and favour flowers that provide them with a landing platform such as dandelions and daisies and later on, thistles and ragwort. In gardens they like chive flowers and lavender.

24/4/15-Red-tailed worker bee on dandelion

24/4/15-Bryn Euryn-Red-tailed worker bee on dandelion

To make things confusing there is a cuckoo-bee that closely resembles the Red-tailed bumblebee. The main differences are that the cuckoo bee has black wings and the back legs are hairy and without the shiny hairless patch, the pollen basket, of the true bee.

There were a very few Common Carder bees Bombus pascuorum about and I only managed one quick shot of one visiting a dog violet flower. There will be many more later on.

Carder Bee

Bryn Euryn – Common Carder Bee

An exciting new recording for me here was of the Tree Bumblebee Bombus hypnorum, that’s is not to say they weren’t here before, just that I had never seen one. I was lucky to spot two that were taking nectar from the Green Alkanet flowers which grow in a big patch next to the car-park gate.

21/4/15 -Tree bumblebee-Bombus hypnorum

21/4/15 – Bryn Euryn-Tree bumblebee-Bombus hypnorum

Tree bumblebees are fairly new arrivals to the UK, first found in 2001 in Wiltshire. Since then they have spread across most of England and Wales and made it to Southern Scotland in 2013. Queens, workers and males all have a similar colour pattern; the thorax is tawny to reddish-brown, the abdomen is black and the tail is white.

Tree bumblebee burdened with mites

Tree bumblebee burdened with mites

Queens vary significantly in size and can reach up to 18mm in length. Males are quite chunky and can be as much as 16mm in length; fresh males have a patch of yellowish facial hair which eventually wears off. Workers, which is what I believe I photographed range from 11-16mm in length; they move around rapidly and are effective pollinators.

Basking on the leaves of the butterbur plant that also grows near the gate at the bottom end of of the car park was another little bee. I’m not positive about its identification but based on the colour of the hairs on its thorax I think it may be an Early Mining Bee – Andrena haemorrhoa.

150421TGNW-BE68c-Early Mining Bee

Bryn Euryn-Early Mining Bee-Andrena haemorrhoa

A couple of days later I was walking on the Little Orme and came across another species of mining bee that cannot be mistaken for anything else, the Tawny Mining Bee-Andrena fulva.

There were two individuals attempting to nectar on Alexander’s while a particularly strong wind was bending and tossing the flower around. It was tricky trying to get focussed images.

28/4/15- Tawny Mining Bee on Alexanders -Little Orme

28/4/15- Little Orme-Tawny Mining Bee on Alexanders

Males are 10 to 12 mm and the females 8 to 10 mm long. The females are covered with fox red hair on their backs and black on the underside, whilst the males are more slender and yellower in appearance.

Tawny Mining Bee

Little Orme-Tawny Mining Bee

One of the two managed to hold on and kept searching over the florets, but the other gave up and dropped to the ground.

Tawny Mining Bee on the ground

Tawny Mining Bee on the ground

The bees mate in spring, after which the male dies and the female starts to build a nest. Sometimes more than a hundred females build nests in a few square metres but the Tawny Mining Bee normally does not create a colony: each female has her own nest.

Finally I’d like to mention another little bee found locally, the Red Mason Bee Osmia rufa, also most likely to be spotted around this time of year.

Fairy Glen-Red Mason Bee

Fairy Glen-Red Mason Bee

The males are smaller than the females at 6 -11 mm. Both sexes are covered in dense gingery hairs, the male with white tufts on the head while the female’s head is black.

Red Mason Bee

Red Mason Bee (m)

It is a solitary bee, each nest being the work of a single female bee working alone. They nest in pre-existing cavities such as hollow plant stems, old garden canes, air bricks, and even old nail holes in fence posts, lining the inside of the cavity with mud.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Spring has finally arrived in Fairy Glen

18 Saturday May 2013

Posted by theresagreen in Local Nature Reserves, Nature of Wales, nature of woodlands, nature photography

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

cuckoo pint, dog violet, Fairy Glen, horsetail, ivy-leaved toadflax, marsh marigold, min-y-don, osmia rufa, Pied Wagtail, ramsons, red mason bee, river Colwyn, song thrush, spring flowers

Last Friday was a day typical of our Spring so far this year, overcast, showery and cool, but as I began driving home at lunchtime the sun came out, so I stopped by the little bridge at Min-y-Don woods as I often do, just to have a quick look at whatever is about. Today that was small birds flying back and forth across the river that I thought may have been Chiffchaff, but turned out to be House Sparrows taking drinks and chasing flies over the water. Then near the bend in the river I caught another flash of bird movement that made me think ‘grey wagtail’. Of course I had to follow it, being ever hopeful of a good photo opportunity. I finally caught up with the bird and saw it was actually a Pied Wagtail that was by now intent enough on catching insects not to be too disturbed by my presence.

A Pied Wagtail adeptly catching flies

A Pied Wagtail adeptly catching flies

Maybe he has a nest nearby and was out hunting for food to feed young ones, or maybe because he was alone, perhaps has a mate still sitting on eggs and he was feeding her, or, maybe he was simply feeding himself. Whatever his aims, he was very entertaining to watch and seemed to be catching plenty of insects.

Pied Wagtail - Motacilla yarellii

Pied Wagtail – Motecilla yarellii

A couple passing by stopped to see what I was photographing and told me they had seen the grey wagtails further upstream, so I had to carry on walking then, just in case.

On the way up to Fairy Glen my eye was caught by a mass of bright green liverwort at the mouth of a drainpipe, giving the impression it was cascading out like water.

Liverwort at the mouth of a drain pipe

Liverwort at the mouth of a drain pipe

Flowers are generally late this year, but they are making up for lost time now. On the stone walls bounding the river and roadside, the pretty, albeit non-native Ivy-leaved Toadflax flourishes.

Ivy-leaved Toadflax- cymbalaria muralis. A native of Mediterranean Europe, but widely naturalised elsewhere

And here and there the darker purple-blue blooms of the Common Dog Violet peeked out.

Common dog-violet

Common dog-violet – Viola riviana with its pretty  heart-shaped leaves

Garlic mustard is beginning to show its modest white flowers; I love the shape and texture of its leaves too.

Garlic Mustard

Garlic Mustard – Alliaria petiolata

Just inside the woodland of the Glen a few stands of graceful bluebells arch up through the masses of  almost-done lesser celandines, surrounded by encroaching wild garlic.

Bluebell -

Bluebell – Hyacynthoides non-scripta

Further into the woodland the air was filled with the pungent scent of masses of ramsons, or wild-garlic, just reaching the peak of its flowering. Great swathes of it flow down the sloping riverbank and it carpets much of the ground beneath the trees too, to the apparent delight of a host of nectar-seeking insects.

130510TGNJ4-wild garlic-fairy glen

Ramsons, Wild Garlic – Allium ursinum

Ramsons flowers and buds

Ramsons flowers and buds

I watched big beautiful bumblebees, several different species of hoverfly and some little bees that I didn’t recognise visiting the starry white flowers. Looking afterwards at the photographs and checking several identification books and websites, I have ended up with mason bees. If anyone knows better, please let me know.

One of a number of tiny mason bees feasting on the nectar of the wild garlic flowers

One of a number of tiny mason bees feasting on the nectar of the wild garlic flowers

Red Mason Bee – Osmia rufa

One of the little bees (male), pausing briefly to soak up some warmth

One of the little bees (male), pausing briefly to soak up some warmth

 Description: 

The male bees

are smaller than the females at

just 6 -11 mm long. Both

sexes

are covered in dense gingery hairs, the male with white tufts on the head while the female’s head is black.

Habitat: 

Around suitable nesting sites. 

The Red Mason Bee is active from early spring, the male being the first to appear when the weather becomes mild in March, the female emerging later. Like all bees it feeds on pollen.

 Life History: This is a solitary bee, each nest being the work of a single female working alone. They nest in pre-existing cavities such as hollow plant stems, old garden canes, air bricks, and even old nail holes in fence posts, lining the inside of the cavity with mud.

There were birds singing, I heard chiffchaff, blackbird, robin and wren, but most of those I saw, including blue tits, great tits and a coal tit seemed more intent on hunting for insects, so I imagine there are gaping little beaks to fill.

fern frond unfurling

fern frond unfurling amongst the wild garlic

An hour had passed by without me even noticing and I could have stayed even longer, but there began to be quite a few people about keeping the wildlife more discreet in their activities, so I started to make tracks back; I would have missed the sight of a lovely song thrush if I’d kept going.

Song Thrush with what I think is a worm

Walking back towards Min-y-Don I took a detour up and around one of the other paths and found yet more interesting plants to distract me.

Arum -

A strange plant with many names-Lords & Ladies, Jack-in-the-Pulpit,Cuckoo Pint or Wild Arum – Arum maculatum

Horsetail

Horsetail- Equisetum

An almost-orange Welsh Poppy

Sunlight catching the  almost-orange petals of a Welsh Poppy-Mecanopsis cambrica

Kingcups, or marsh maraigolds reflected in a pool of water

Golden kingcups, or Marsh Marigolds-Calthea palustris reflected in a pool of water

And finally an impressive clump of dock that has found purchase in mud on the shallow edge of the river. I know it’s not a desirable plant, but it looked quite well there with its big shapely leaves.

Curled dock

Dock

A crow strutting along the river-wall, feathers gleaming with shades of purple and green

a crow strutting along the river-wall, feathers gleaming with shades of purple and green

Two hours after setting off for one photograph I was on the way back home, but couldn’t resist the sight of rabbits amongst the mass of primroses on the embankment, which is where the current page header came from.

bunnies amongst the primroses

bunnies amongst the primroses

Back at home a large white butterfly was nectaring on a dandelion, the first I’ve seen so far this year. Large white that is, not dandelion, whose population seems to have boomed this year. I have never seen so many.

large white taking nectar from a dandelion

large white taking nectar from a dandelion

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‘But it is the common species that keep the living world ticking over and provide most of our experiences of wildlife, and I would argue that maintaining the abundance of these is as important a conservation priority as maintaining the existence of rarities’. Richard Mabey

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