July 2010

A flurry of email activity at the start of the month before heading north to Orkney.  We were able to publicise the success of National Insect Week in the local Tiree paper, An Tirisdeach, and also follow up on an intriguing project by the Macaulay Institute, who are resurveying areas of machair that were looked at in the 1970s.  There is the chance to survey great yellow bumblebee numbers in relation to these plant surveys, which could indicate preferred management options for bees, and – very tentatively – suggest what possible impact on bee numbers any changes in vegetation and land use over the past 30+ years may have had.

I broke my journey north at a few places before catching the evening ferry, looking at the availability of spring flowers for great yellow bumblebees.  Thankfully, after a long day, I didn’t have far to go to find the B&B (The Inn at St Mary’s, Holm) which was wonderful.  I took a short walk before breakfast on the opposite side of the road where there was perhaps a total area of red clover patches totalling perhaps 20m² in an area of 100m². Remarkably, there were four great yellow bumblebee queens here (one was rather small), three of which had collected pollen!  The numbers of great yellow bumblebees certainly do seem to have increased on Orkney, probably due to a combination of good weather and beneficial management being carried out by farmers there. 

One of my reasons to visit now was to check the progress of a small number of ‘pollen & nectar’ mixes using agricultural legumes.  Three of the five sites had done well, and all of these had great yellow bumblebees.  At one of these sites, hosted by Dick Matson, we also had a quick look at bees in the garden, at Dick’s suggestion.  I looked at a patch of Geranium where there was a slow-moving bumblebee and did something of a double take – surely this is a Barbut’s cuckoo bumblebee?!  It looked just like the ones I saw with Pippa in May, with a slightly dingy yellow ‘collar’.  Catching the bee allowed us to see the distinctive ridges on the underside to confirm that this was indeed Bombus barbutellus, a rare and localised species in Scotland – the nearest records to Orkney are from Aberdeen!  John Crossley circulated the information and remarkably two more females were seen in July, another on Mainland Orkney and one on Egilsay.  It seems there are some older records from Orkney, and a photo of a good candidate was taken the year before.

I also attended an Open Day run by the Scottish Agricultural College concerning the use of clover in silage (see photo of Luing cattle, photo courtesy of Graham Scott).  The use of red clover in particular has increased, and young cattle can put on nearly 1kg a day on this rich diet!  I also visited a couple of farms in the company of Graham Scott of SAC, to look at suitability of sites for great yellow bumblebee and discuss management.  In contrast to the Open Day, the weather was terrible, but no excuse not to look at flowers.

I left Orkney on the afternoon ferry and headed to Bettyhill to join Paul Castle for a guided walk at the Farr Glebe bumblebee sanctuary.  The rain had abated and we had a beautiful evening with the few brave souls that had taken a gamble on the weather improving.  A great yellow bumblebee queen was busy collecting pollen, with perhaps the same individual returning within 20 minutes to gather more pollen.  After the walk, Paul and I looked at the Naverside area, where there is abundant kidney vetch this year, and also the peculiar legume, purple oxytropis.  We saw another great yellow bumblebee queen here.

Much of the remainder of the month was spent visiting sites to assess flower richness, suitability for Species Action Framework demonstration sites, or visiting farms. It was exciting to confirm that great yellow bumblebee was still present at Melvich, where they had been found for the first time last year by Paul.  The pollen & nectar mix plots on Caithness farms had now started to flower, and by the end of the month there were a number of records of great yellow bumblebees from the volunteers monitoring the sites.  There was an encouraging number of sightings of workers from the third week in July.  For me, a particular highlight was seeing my first great yellow bumblebees at Durness, with workers collecting pollen from red clover and a queen prospecting for a nest site at a stone wall.  In Caithness reports of workers included several away from the pollen & nectar mix plots.  This was the first chance we had to see which of the wildflowers were being used as pollen sources. Several of the verges were very flower rich, and the use of red clover and tufted vetch were not a surprise, but meadowsweet was.  The past two years of the Bumblebee Habitat Project has revolutionised our understanding of great yellow bumblebees in Caithness, with much cause for optimism.

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The Sunday Times Scottish University of the Year 2009/2010

The University of Stirling is a charity registered in Scotland, number SC 011159.

June 2010

June’s busy start continued right through the months.  There were a number of highlights, one of which was revisiting two flower-rich sites among the Dunnet Bay dunes, identified by Murdo Macdonald in 1999.  Queen great yellow bumblebees were present at both sites, which was fabulous.  At the south end of the dunes there is a good range of flower species, and the bees here were using red clover (see photo).  The other site is dominated by kidney vetch, and supports a healthy small blue colony (another UK BAP species).  The same evening we also held a training day for volunteers, starting at the Seadrift visitor centre (well worth a visit) and then moving out into the dunes.  Also in Caithness, the pollen and nectar seed mixes sown in May had germinated well, and the different components could be clearly picked out among the arable wildflowers. 

In Sutherland, there was an enthusiastic turn out for my talk in the village hall, and Donald Mitchell reported a great yellow bumblebee feeding on kidney vetch by the Durness visitor centre.  This was the first spring queen reported in the area since 2005, when one was seen at the same place (and two seen nearby) by a visiting entomologist.  An assessment of the diversity and abundance of flowers along the north Sutherland coast was particularly encouraging, especially in the Kyle of Tongue (a National Scenic Area dominated by the dramatic Ben Loyal).  There is a historic record from the Kyle (1974) and it is a crucial gap in the known modern distribution of great yellow bumblebee on the UK mainland.

The month finished in celebration of National Insect Week where my great yellow bumblebee work started two years ago, on the Inner Hebridean islands of Coll and Tiree.  These islands are the only places in Scotland where you can regularly see all three of Scotland’s priority bumblebee species: great yellow, moss carder (of the striking Hebridean form) and red-shanked carder. On Coll, we also now have the start of a bumblebee recording group, which is fantastic news.  There was an encouraging number of sightings of spring queen great yellow bumblebees, including one that had ventured into a local restaurant on Tiree (Ceabhar).  For the safari we had a glorious day at Balephetrish dunes - much better weather than when we were filmed in advance of the National Lottery Awards!  We saw several queen great yellow bumblebees, including ones collecting pollen (kidney vetch again) and also prospecting for nest sites.  We also found a Barbut’s cuckoo bumblebee Bombus barbutellus - present on Coll but this appears to be a ‘first’ for Tiree!  Across Gunna Sound, a queen buff-tailed bumblebee B. terrestris was a ‘first’ for Coll which seemed very out of place among the dunes. My ‘bumblebee safaris’ complemented talks by Darren Mann on the amazing oil beetles that had been discovered on Coll, and which rely on solitary bees for part of their life cycle.  I also had the great pleasure of meeting up with Donald MacKinnon of the Scottish Agricultural College, and visiting a number of crofts on Tiree that were considering applying to agri-environment schemes.  It is hard not to be enthralled by the islands, with basking sharks offshore and a rich diversity of birds (I came across a female corncrake and two young chicks on the roadside).  A long-tailed skua was a delight as it sailed along a beach on Tiree as I was busy counting red-shanked carder bee queens, and although there was some uncertainty as to whether I could leave the islands (the regular ferry was out of action), in the end it was probably for the best that I returned to Stirling!

 

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The Sunday Times Scottish University of the Year 2009/2010

The University of Stirling is a charity registered in Scotland, number SC 011159.

Durness

An opportunity to spend a few days in NW Sutherland and see Highland Council Countryside Ranger Donald Mitchell.  The great yellow bumblebee is perhaps more vulnerable here than anywhere else in its now highly restricted range. Donald has seen more than anyone else in recent years but numbers are usually very low. The availability of spring forage for queens had been a concern last year, with bird's-foot trefoil and kidney vetch the main flowers likely to be used early on.  I have received reports of good numbers of queens in Orkney over the past week using the former. Sango Bay has a good amount of both species, particularly around the Tourist Information Centre, so it is hoped they will be visited by newly emerged queens. There are other areas where yellow rattle, red clover, tufted vetch and meadow vetchling will become available - the first two had already started flowering - which will be vital as the queens start their nests and the worker numbers build up during July.  There was also some eyebright, a beautiful but very complicated group of species, one of the reasons why the Sutherland coast is an Important Plant Area. There is also a fair bit of bush vetch flowering, used by great yellows at the nearby Sandwood Estate by Kinlochbervie.  There, I met Don O'Driscoll, the John Muir Trust ranger, where the bush vetch was flowering well and used by common carder bees and garden bumblebee.  We caught a single moss carder bee queen, but Don spotted perhaps another, that seemed to be visiting a nest.

 

I also checked a 5km stretch around the Kyle of Tongue, from Melness to Talmine and Strathan.  One area was superb, with spring and summer forage, perhaps too small to encourage a wandering queen to establish residence, but nearby crofts could hold the key. Other areas had excellent summer forage to come, particularly knapweeds but also tufted vetch and meadow vetchling. However, suitable flower-rich areas were patchy. This area is the largest gap in the current distribution along the north coast. It would be wonderful to discover the great yellow bumblebee here in the summer - a final stepping stone linking the Sutherland and Caithness populations.  There is an old record from Skullomie, near the bay at Coldbackie on the east side of the Kyle.

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The Sunday Times Scottish University of the Year 2009/2010

The University of Stirling is a charity registered in Scotland, number SC 011159.

Mull and Iona

A short period on Iona and the Ross of Mull to look for red-shanked carder bee Bombus ruderarius, found on Iona in 2005 by BBCT Director Ben Darvill.  In Scotland, it is currently only known from the nearby islands of Coll and Tiree.  No luck with spring queens, though a 'black, red-tailed' bumblebee at the far north end proved, after careful stalking, to be a red-tailed bumblebee Bombus lapidarius.  New for Iona perhaps, but not the main target! In summer, there is a better chance to find workers and males, if one or more queens establish nests.  There were at least two queens of the moss carder bee Bombus muscorum, which was great. There were a few corncrakes calling, and if there are flower-rich grasslands managed for these, then this will also support the bees.  I also met up with the National Trust for Scotland volunteers, but the weather turned breezy and showery.  However, we did find a caterpillar of the belted beauty moth, and in a brief period of sunshine a narrow-bordered bee hawk-moth sped by.

 

The next day, I visited a very productive area of the Ross of Mull, where there were a couple more moss carder bee queens, a first dark green fritillary of the year, more belted beauty caterpillars, a couple of solitary bee species, an approachable golden-ringed dragonfly and another narrow-bordered bee hawk-moth, which was nectaring at bird's-foot trefoil a few inches from my boot.  Then, off to the north and Sutherland.

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The Sunday Times Scottish University of the Year 2009/2010

The University of Stirling is a charity registered in Scotland, number SC 011159.

training and nest activity

Scottish Biodiversity Week closed with a training day at Killiecrankie, as part of the Tayside Biodiversity Festval.  A fitting climax, and the weather was very kind to us despite a prolonged downpour in the morning.  Several bumblebee species were found, including the forest cuckoo bumblebee Bombus sylvestris - a new 10km square record!  Only queens of the social species were seen, inlcuding early bumblebee.  We may be seeing new queens soon down in Stirling.  A queen of the 'northern' white-tailed bumblebee was caught (Bombus magnus) which was my first of the year.  A few solitary bees were also found.  A second training day was on Friday with Edinburgh and Lothian rangers at Holyrood Park.  An excellent turnout, and though a little cooler, we missed the worst of the rain.  There were many queen common carder bees at white deadnettle, and fresh (later emerging?) buff-tailed bumblebee queens, but also one or two workers of both the former species and early bumblebee.  Natalie Taylor spotted a queen common carder bee heading into some moss and grass at the base of a large rock.  Aftera few minutes the bee came out again.  We felt strongly that this was a nest, and Natalie will keep an eye on it, and be able to incorporate it into the guided walks at the Park. No cuckoo bumblebees, which was a shame, but a few solitary bees included the early mining bee Andrena haemorrhoa and possibly Andrena scotica when the sun came out, and the day was further brightened by several small copper butterflies (including 4 together) and the peculiar day-flying moth, the Mother Shipton.  I safely negotiated the Edinburgh back roads and the M9, to be greeted at home by a male early bumblebee, the first of the year, on an ornamental thistle - Cirsium rivulare atropurpureum.  A very good bumblebee plant that I first came across in the garden at RSPB Vane Farm.  It doesn't set seed and am guessing it only provides nectar, but great for bees.

 

Back home, and although one of the early bumblebee nests has failed, the one in the bumblebee box is doing very well.  12 workers in and 12 out in quarter of an hour - more data for Steph O'Connor's nest project!  We do have a new nest though, again an early bumblebee and again in a man made structure.  This one is in a turning compost bin - which goes to show I don't turn it very often - just over 5m from the other nest.  It's a bit of a lottery which holes the bees use, but most come out of the centre one in the top.  The bin amplifies the buzzing quite dramatically!  Less activity than the bumblebee box nest (5 workers in and 6 out) so am guessing it was established a little later.  Photos of all three nest sites attached.

 

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The Sunday Times Scottish University of the Year 2009/2010

The University of Stirling is a charity registered in Scotland, number SC 011159.

southward bound

Getting ready to head south, to Highland Perthshire, after a great week in Caithness, where after last week's snow and hail we have seen some wonderful sunny and warm weather.  It has been very busy, with a well-attended public talk in Castletown during the week - thanks to Gordon for the organisation!  Also a very warm welcome from the Olrig and District Beekeepers.  The main foucs of the week has been farm visits, especially linked to the project we are running in partnership with the Caithness Biodiversity Group, providing flower-rich seed mixes to sow in corners of arable fields.  It was great to meet up with Phyllida Sayles and some of her volunteer recorders again.

I have also been looking at a few grassland sites, especially interested to see where there are good amounts of the flowers that the great yellow bumblebee uses, such as yellow rattle and common knapweed, even if they're mostly only a centimetre or two high at the moment.  There is also quite a bit of meadow vetchling coming through already and one of the sites appears to be an old, but neglected hay meadow, that is no longer part of a farm.  However, there seems scope to restore it with a bit of TLC.

As everywhere else this year, the flowers and the bees are about two weeks late, though this morning I see that the white-tailed queens are homing in on sycamore blossom.  Any bumblebee searching has been along road verges where dandelions are flowering abundantly.  Gypsy cuckoo bumblebees are very common just now, mooching away and getting stained by dandelion pollen.  I counted 13 along one stretch.  At one point I stopped and was halted in my tracks by the rasping call of a corncrake, which I think was in one of the ditches.  Not wanting to disturb it, I phoned Dave Jones of RSPB, based in Caithness, and we met up in the evening. The bird was still calling away as the landowner arrived, waiting on a grass seed delivery, and said he thought he had heard one the previous evening.

The same day I was delighted to catch a queen moss carder bee.  I then took photos of what I suspect to be a second individual - the dilemma of 'to catch or not to catch'!  Later on I took photos of a common carder bee that looked very like moss carder (side view).  Both pictures included here.

 

And finally, the sparrows around the livestock farms in Caithness seem to be doing well.  No problems of insect shortages for them and have seen a couple of broods out being fed by attentive parents.  We ended up buying live mealworms at home for ours, which were instantly collected by the female sparrows, with a first fledgeling seen last weekend, a couple of weeks later than the first one last year.

 

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The Sunday Times Scottish University of the Year 2009/2010

The University of Stirling is a charity registered in Scotland, number SC 011159.

Scottish Biodiversity Week begins!

It's May, and Scottish Biodiversity Week has come round again.  Over the weekend I was in Morayshire, visiting Forres and Findhorn.  There was a fundraiser at a children's garden In Forres on Saturday, complete with not one, but two performances by Margot in her bespoke bee suit.  A talk in the evening was attended by a number of people, with a walk the next day needing to be rearranged to a site with flowers given the late season.  In the end, the walk was excellent, turning up 5 of the 'Big 6' (just red-tailed bumblebee eluded us) plus a couple of gypsy cuckoo bumblebees.  A couple of early bumblebee workers were also busy collecting pollen, so some nests have been established and are on the go. A honeybee was found, so we could compare the pollen baskets of this with those of the bumblebees.  Green tiger beetles were much in evidence on the warm sunshine and we came across many solitary bees, with the males smaller and differently coloured to the females.  See the picture for a mating pair - again, no courtship, just the female staying still for nearly a whole second.  These may be identifiable from the photo as Andrena barbilabris.  We shall see!  If they are, it is a new 10km square according to the NBN Gateway.

 

Then off to Caithness, arrriving at Thurso late on, via a hayfield I had seen last year with much yellow rattle, which was coming through well again.  A busy week ahead and the weather looks set to be fine.  Still probably too early for the great yellow bumblebee queens to be out, but there is an abundance of dandelions at the moment, and last year the earliest queens were seen at this flower.

 

 

 

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The Sunday Times Scottish University of the Year 2009/2010

The University of Stirling is a charity registered in Scotland, number SC 011159.