The sun came out again today, and the temperature shot up, and almost immediately the garden began humming with bees and bee-flies. New for the year were a male Trimmer’s and a female Buffish Mining Bee (Andrena trimmerana and Andrena nigroaenea), plus a Fabricius’ Nomad Bee (Nomada fabriciana), which beat the usual suspects to be listed as the first Nomad of the season.
Late in the afternoon I heard an almighty, laboured buzzing from the depths of an aucuba, and a huge female Vestal Cuckoo Bee (Bombus vestalis) hauled herself up onto a leaf, where she balanced precariously, repeatedly sliding towards the edge and having to claw her way back to the leaf axil. She looked thoroughly discombobulated at waking up in a world for which she seemed quite unprepared, and I was feeling rather sorry for her until I remembered her lifestyle, which involves doing no work herself, but searching out and invading the nest of a Buff-tailed Bumblebee, killing the queen, and then subverting the rest of the colony to work for her instead. I’d photographed several Buff-tailed queens during the afternoon, one of which had already founded her nest and was busily foraging to feed the first generation of workers, and my sympathy for the Vestal queen withered on the vine.
After taking a massive surfeit of photos in the burst of enthusiasm brought on by all these bees, I felt the need to do gardening penance, so I took the hedge trimmer to the overgrown ivy covering the big old farm wall that bounds our back yard. This was Very Hard Work, and I’m now toadally zorsted – but the yard looks better for it, and I’m far less worried than I was that the weight of the ivy might prove too much for the wall.
R: L2. C6, D16.
