Devon SSSI nature reserve and eco lodges - Maggie's Blog
15 April
Bees and spring flowers...
Spring is gathering pace. Ladys' smock is flowering in the fields, I saw an orange tip butterfly in the garden over Easter weekend, and wood sorrel is brightening the shade beneath the trees.
And bees are out and about. The photos aren't great, but can anyone tell me what these bees are, living in the cob wall by Ian's workshop?
My inexpert guess is Anthophoridae plumipes, or the flower bee, partly because my 'Wildlife Trust's guide to insects' says the males and females are different colours - and there are definitely at least two colours here - and that they can live in soft masonry and fly from March to June... (So what do they do the rest of the year? Do the adults die off leaving the larvae to hatch next spring?)
If this is A. plumipes, then I wouldn't fancy being a female when it's mating season. A quick google didn't bring up much about this species' ecology, but there was a paper describing how, after a brief foraging period in the monring, the males take to patrolling flowers and 'pouncing' on females visiting for nectar, knocking them to the ground at a rate of up to once every few seconds. That's some serious harrassment!