Last Thursday I went with Brian, the ecologist, to Liverpool Museum to meet with Carl Clee the Honorary Curator of Aculeate Hymenoptera (bees, wasps and ants). We took with us the solitary bees we'd collected at Yorkshire Sculpture Park in July. Brian had identified them, but needed confirmation form Carl.
What an amazing place - and it was really great to meet with someone so knowledgeable on the subject and who is keen to share that knowledge. Identifying solitary bees is a really complicated, tricky subject - one of the collected bees turned out to be a solitary wasp!
Carl also showed me some the collection of bees, wasps and ants in the cabinets - i loved it.
Our solitary bees identified on Thursday are:
Anthidium manicatum
Andrena helvola
Andrena denticulata
Andrena subopaca
Halictus rubicundus
The collected wasp was a Crossocerus tarsatus.
Brian has written out lots of info for me which i will put on the blog when i've also taken some close up shots of the bees.
erm.. I think its more accurate to say I'd had a go at identifying them, and Carl actually did id them. They're very tricky!
ReplyDeleteBrian.