Nature Diary 05062021

Bees, more Bees and some special Bees

5/6/2021

I take it all back ... a few days of sunshine and the garden is positively buzzing and I've never noticed such a variety of bees here before.

It's almost impossible to relax in the garden at the moment with the constant buzzing and tweeting. My walk to work is completely distracted as movements catch my attention and need investigation.

Early Bumblebee on Scabious

I've spent a few years getting a handle on identifying bumblebees although I am still struggling with the Cuckoos. I'm delighted to have seen Early Bumblebees, Buff tails, (or maybe) White Tails, Common Carders and Tree Bumblebees in the garden this week. In my photos below I have captioned them as best I can but identifying bees can be tricky.
I doubt I have any rare ones so I can quite safely say that the Carder bees in my garden are probably the Common Carder. I would need several trips out with Nikki Gammans and her team before I would feel comfortable identifying a Moss Carder from a Shrill Carder with those few extra dark hairs. I'm also fairly confident with the males (with the help of the trusty BBCT website).
Timing and size will often tell me whether it's a worker or a queen but I still get a bit confused when Cuckoo bees arrive on the scene - I rarely get close enough to check out their hairy legs.

I think I know the Honey Bee but there are a number of bees that look similar and I'm pretty sure they are Solitary Bees. There are over 270 types of bee in the UK. 25 of these are Bumblebees (including the Cuckoos) and one Honeybee. The rest are known as Solitary Bees and many are very specialist and unlikely to be seen in my garden.

In my struggle to get some photos I've noticed that the length of time devoted to each flower not only depends on the type of bee but also on the flower design.

I have dedicated hours trying to get a photo of the all black female hairy footed flower bee with no success - it darts very quickly from one flower to the next barely stopping. Whereas you have plenty of time to watch a bee roll around the centre of a welsh poppy provided you don't spook it with your looming black phone!

The images below are a selection of the bees in my garden this week taken on my phone. I have labelled them with best guess identification but I'm happy to be corrected.