Thursday 3 June 2010

Catching Bees




Last night i went out to a lovely little meadow near to where i live in Preston. I went with a chap called Brian who is also keen on bees.

The evening was sunny and warm and the meadow was full of flowering dog daisies, buttercups, vetch, crane's bill and grasses. I had a go at catching bees in a net and then looking at them in an inspection tube before releasing them.

We caught lots - the fields were buzzing. We caught 4 species of bumblebee (pascuorum
, hortorum, terrestris and lapidarius) and also a couple of solitary bees. We also caught a couple of wasp species, hover-flies and a bee mimic - a fly in disguise. I loved it last night - wandering about in the flowers, finding new things to wonder at.

The middle image shows Bombus hortorum Garden bumblebee
The bottom image shows a solitary bee - with its underside covered in pollen.

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