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.

Hants, Wilts and Gloucs

A foray to the far south last week, to meet up with Pippa Rayner, BBCT Conservation Officer for England and Wales, working on the shrill carder bee Bombus sylvarum. A welcome chance to learn some grasses - though I seem to have a thing for crested dog's-tail, which we eventually found.  It was then the first grass I picked up in Caithness, where I arrived last night.  At least I think it was! 

 

A very successful visit, covering nearly 20 grasses, mostly associated with meadows.  Now I have to practice back on my own patch! On the bee front, we encounted a number of beefy female Southern Cuckoo bumblebees B. vestalis, a queen and worker red-shanked carder bee B. ruderarius and my first 'tree bee' B. hypnorum.  We also found two female Barbut's cuckoo bumblebees B. barbutellus, each feeding at bugle flowers.  This is a very scarce species in Scotland so it was good to see, though we had to rely on the diagnostic structure of the bumps ('callosities') on the underside of the last abdominal segment for identification! There was also a stunning little solitary bee Osmia bicolor and I saw my first 'hairy-footed flower bees' Anthophora plumipes.  Cowslips were putting on a good show, with the delicate horseshoe vetch in flower at one site, and both green-winged and early marsh orchids out.  As elsewhere, everything is late this 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.

weekend activity

The apple blossom at home is certainly getting attention, and I managed to get a photo of one of the very active early bumblebee workers.  The subtlety of courtship of the red mason bee was also demonstrated, by a male hurling himself onto a female.  They grappled for a while on the blossom before falling to the deadnettle below.  After about a minute the female reappeared, seemingly none the worse for her ordeal.  I suspect not a successful mating.  A passing snipe fly clearly thought I was a handy vantage point to watch out for prey, and then took up station above the front door.

 

Sadly, the bumblebee nest in the tit box has failed - the queen has succumbed to the spider also present in the box.  However, the one in the bumblebee box is doing well, though a female forest cuckoo bumblebee (Bombus sylvestris) has spent time nearby  The blackbird chicks departed the relative security of our garden and from the behaviour of the parents, it looks like these were immediately snuffed out, most likely by one or more of the many local moggies.  House sparrows also seem to be having a hard time.  Usually the first broods are pretty successful, but the adults seem to be finding it hard securing enough insect food for the chicks in this late spring.  Bread is being taken to nests, and at least two pairs were mating this morning, suggesting failed clutches.

 

Flower resources outside gardens are still thin on the ground.  The willow here is has finished, although sycamore blossom is just becoming available.  Bush vetch flowers are also nearly open, but the yellow comfrey has just started to flower.  A grasshopper warbler was an unusual vistor to an old walled garden, singing its peculiar song in short snatches from a low willow branch.

 

 

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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.

small queens around

Although we are now just seeing the first workers of early and buff-tailed bumblebee, there have been some surprsingly small queens of early bumblebee and common carder bee around. The behaviour was typical of other 'normal' sized queens, with foraging interspersed with nest searching activity. There is always quite a bit of variation, and Murdo Macdonald of the Highland Biological Recording Group tells me that he previously examined a very small queen garden bumblebee (Bombus hortorum) to confirm that it had indeed mated. I did wonder if this might be a problem, though equally, some males can also be very small. The large variation in size of spring queens may well reflect a reduced ability of workers to find food the previous summer, for example because of poor weather, or simply lack of the right flowers. Therefore some larvae may not get much food, and become small queens and males. Also, it is possible that the small size of these queens may mean that their dominance over the workers is reduced once the nest is established, and so success of these nests (in terms of new queens recruited) may be low.