Lying on the grass in Kensington Gardens just now (immaculate three-piece suit, panama hat, jauntily tied cravat, summerweight spats), I was pleased to see that the grass was alive with Solitary Bees, buzzing to and fro on low-altitude reconnaissance missions. Needless to say, solitary bees are said to be endangered and under threat (no doubt from global warming), but the news clearly hasn't reached Kensington yet. Every year around this time they're out in force.
(By the way, check the link on the Solitary Bees site to Homes for Solitary Bees. Strangely touching.)
Thursday, May 08, 2008
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
Ah, Bourdonier au Travail! They are fascinating, you're right. They do a lot of good and no one any harm at all. Not many of us you can say that of. I hope set-aside isn't run down too much, or all those fallow fields will be lost to the bees, solitary or social, in favour of some biofuel scam.
ReplyDeleteNige, what do you have in that cavernous remembering head of yours regarding small colonies of bees, a few hundred, hiving in the ground. We have this every year, perhaps four or five groups, until the badgers blitz them.
ReplyDeleteCould be Mining Bees, Malty. Although they're solitary, some of them hive very close together - 100 or more in a square yard - giving the impression of one colony.
ReplyDeleteNige, what they seem to do is to create tunnels about 30mm dia leading down to where there is the remains of an old dry stone wall, about 600 meters long, (they are more or less present all along this), and create the hive in the cavities, backing on to us is a gorse covered hill and that is where they seem to feed. Regardless of the stones, the badgers just dig them out. I will try and photograph them shortly.
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