Dawson’s bee battle

It is rare for any species of animal to regularly kill its own in combat. However, male Dawson’s bees, one of the world’s largest bee species, are so aggressive that they kill each other en masse in a bid to mate with females.

The bees enter a frenzy of fighting, and by the time their deadly combat is over, every male bee is either killed or has perished. The extreme behaviour, which can lead to even females being killed, is caught on film by a BBC natural history crew.

Dawson’s bees (Amegilla dawsoni) are large burrowing bees that nest in the baked soil of the Australian outback.

[Read full article] (includes great footage from the BBC series Life)

ETA: Amegillas form a genus of large bees that has around 250 species. Some of its members are important agricultural pollinators in Australia and other tropical and sub-tropical areas. The blue-banded bee uses vibration to obtain pollen (buzz pollination). The beautifully named teddy bear bee is also a species of amegilla.

GPS used to preserve ants’ nests

Conservationists in Northumberland have used satellite technology to pinpoint 69 rare ants’ nests before work to fell thousands of trees begins.

The nests, made of conifer needles, are home to the hairy northern wood ant. (eta: Formica lugubris)

The Forestry Commission is removing 10,000 tonnes of conifer planted in the 20th Century to restore the area to its ancient roots as an oak wood.

Foresters will be provided with the nests’ GPS co-ordinates to ensure they do not damage them.

[Read full article] (includes a small video news report)

BBC New Online

Here’s the same story covered by the Forestry Commission.

National Trust property test site for super ant pest control

A National Trust property is being used as a test site for controlling the spread of an invasive ant across Europe.

A colony of 35,000 super ants was discovered in England for the first time in a fuse box at Hidcote Manor, Gloucestershire earlier this year.

The ants, that originate in Asia, are already a problem across central and western Europe and now it appears they are spreading north.

[Read full article]

Note: Despite the article suggesting ‘the ants are spreading across the country’, as far as I know the Hidcote colony is the only one yet confirmed as Lasius neglectus.

Warning over foreign bumblebee factories

HUNDREDS of thousands of foreign bumblebees are being imported into the UK each year by fruit farmers worried their crops will fail, The Scotsman has learned.

Bumblebee numbers in the UK have plummeted in recent decades, and this is leading fruit growers to import thousands of hives each year to help pollinate crops.

However, experts have warned the bees from Europe may carry diseases that threaten the survival of many vulnerable native varieties of the insect in Scotland.

[Read full article]

Bombus hypnorum – Summary of 2009 monitoring project

See the summary of this years Bombus hypnorum monitoring project over at BWARS.

Related post: Bombus hypnorum 2009.

Don’t forget to keep your eye out for it next year..

Two Colletes bees to look out for

In the UK and Europe, two species of solitary bees to look out for at this time of the year are Colletes halophilus and Colletes hederae.

The bee Colletes halophilus is found around the southern parts of North Sea coastal regions and has a preference for foraging at Sea Aster Aster tripolium flowers which are found on coastal saltmarshes. It nests along the sand dune-saltmarsh interface and can sometimes be found in large aggregations.

Slightly later, around mid September to October, Colletes hederae can be found in southern England where it is a recent colonist from Europe. As its name suggests, this bee is a specialist at feeding on the flowers of Ivy Hedera helix.

Further information, distribution maps and photos can be found at BWARS and Hymettus (pdf).

BWARS is running a mapping project for Colletes hederae so please report any sightings at the link above.

Colletes halophilus, Humber Estuary, UK, Sept 2009

Hundreds of new species could be discovered in Natural History Museum Collection

Hundreds of species of insects which had been lost to science were rediscovered in the Natural History Museum as staff prepared for the grand opening of its new Darwin Centre.

The museum is to open a £78m building at its base in South Kensington to house the whole of its insect and plant collection in an eight-storey “cocoon”.

But in moving the 20 million species from dusty drawers to their brand new refrigerated home, scientists began to discover species of plants and insects that they had never seen before and some that had already gone extinct.

[Read full article]

Telegraph

Related post: The great museum move

How gardens ‘are richer in wildlife than farmland’

The countryside has been so ‘trashed’ by modern farming that the average garden now contains more wildlife than the same size plot of farmland, a leading plant expert has claimed.

Dr Ken Thompson – an expert in garden wildlife at Sheffield University – warned that huge swathes of rural Britain had been turned into ecological ‘deserts’ without weeds, wildflowers or insect life.

In contrast, Britain’s 16million gardens were home to an astonishingly rich diversity of plants, insects, mammals and birds, he said.

[Read full article]

Daily Mail

Buzz of excitement over bumblebee

The great yellow bumblebee (ETA: Bombus distinguendus) - one of Britain’s rarest bees – has been found at its most southerly site in 30 years.

Once widespread, its numbers declined in the face of intensive farming and has clung to survival on Orkney and the Western Isles.

The far north Highlands are home to the last mainland population.

Bob Dawson, of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust (BCT), has now discovered the species near Lybster, on the east Caithness coast..

[Read full article]

BBC Online

France worried by hornet invasion

France faces an invasion of Chinese hornets that could hasten the decline of the honeybee population.

The wasps, known by their scientific name Vespa velutina, could also threaten bee-keepers’ livelihoods, researchers say.

They have spread rapidly in south-western France – a region popular with tourists – and could reach other European countries soon.

The 3cm-long insects are recognisable by their orange heads and yellow feet.

Researchers think they probably arrived in France on a boat carrying ceramic goods from China in 2004.

The most recent study recorded 1,100 nests across the country. The hornet is now firmly established near Bordeaux and has advanced as far north as parts of Brittany in north-western France.

[Read full article]

BBC Online

Note: This article does not refer to the so called ‘Japanese Giant Hornet’ often mentioned in the press. That hornet is Vespa mandarinia and is confined to Japan and the Far East. Also many hornet species have orange/yellow on thier heads and feet including the European hornet Vespa crabro.