Adventuresinbeeland's Blog

It’s been a long time since I last blogged. There’s been a lot going on.

But my house and garden is now pretty much how I want it, and I feel ready to write again now and then. Maybe even more than once a year!

One of my most successful plants this year has been this Erynigum planum, a close relative of sea holly. I bought from Rosy Bee plants, a specialist seller of plants suited to pollinators. Like foxgloves, it only flowers once every two years, so I am enjoying it while I can.

Andrena thoracica (Cliff mining bee) on Eryngium planum

Andreea thoracica (Cliff mining bee) on Eryngium planum

Andreea thoracica (Cliff mining bee) on Eryngium planum

I am lucky as my front garden is south facing and gets sun nearly all day just outside my window. I’ve put out a bench and next to it this big pot with the Eryngium, where I can sit and watch the bees visiting it. Even from inside the house I can hear their buzz when the window is open! I was pleased to see this unusual looking bee come, a fast mover with a shiny black abdomen and fuzzy orangey-brown thorax. Helpful people on one of the UK bee facebook groups tell me it is Andrena thoracica, which mostly sticks to coastal areas around southern England and Wales.

Although this Erynigum planum plant is described as sea holly on the Rosy bee website, apparently it is actually a close relative of actual sea holly, which I have seen on the Cornish cliffs:

Sea holly

Another very popular plant with the pollinators in my garden just now is Verbena bonariensis (also sold at Rosybee, but they are not paying me commission!). I have lots of cabbage white butterflies visiting its tall open blooms and also bumble bees. A red tropical looking flower has self seeded next to it and I love the dramatic colour combo of red and purple.

Verbena

Then a huge patch of geraniums has taken over one flower bed in the back garden now, but I don’t mind as they are pretty, flower for months and bees are over them all day.

Common carder bee on geranium

Some of my garden visitors are easier to love than others, but I was impressed by this mother spider’s instincts. She stayed around her nursery web for a few days guarding it until the tiny baby spiders were big enough to disperse. Now the bees have the hebe plant all to themselves.

What flowers are the bees in your gardens enjoying right now? I’ve stopped keeping bees myself for the time being but have done a little beekeeping this year anyway, helping a friend who had this tiny swarm gathered around a mated queen – they would have about filled a coffee mug poor things.

There’s been a starvation alert sent round by the BBKA this week – “ I don’t think anyone can have failed to notice that the weather has not lived up to expectations so far this season. We have heard from many beekeepers that they have inspected colonies recently which are at major risk of starvation.”

Bearing this in mind, what have bees got to feed on at the moment? Bramble (blackberry) flowers are about, which will be helpful. A couple of weeks ago I took the photos of giant vipers bugloss below, which bees of all kinds seem to love. 

The foxgloves and oxeye daisies are doing really well in my garden this year. I often see a bumblebee bottom disappearing up a foxglove bell. The oxeye daisies are visited by delicate metallic beetles which shine in the sun. And this week I saw a new visitor – the bee-fly. I noticed this curious creature because it hovers like a hummingbird in front of flowers, but has spindly legs like a spider and a long tongue like a moth. Very fast and hard to photograph by the way.

Bee-fly

In the same patch of flowers a drone fly was aggressively dive bombing any bees that it saw, including big bumbles. It is supposedly a honey bee mimic, but it doesn’t remind me of honey bees. It looks more like a drone honey bee of course, as they have larger eyes to spot queens with.

Aggressive drone fly

In the last couple of months I’ve gained an elderly ginger cat called Tigerbun. I have a bait hive set up for bees, but so far all it has attracted is some spiders and Tigerbun, who sits atop it sunning himself. There have been reports of swarms about so who knows, I may get lucky.

Some photos of the flowers I’ve seen out and about in Cornwall and in my garden over the last couple of weeks. I like to see what’s in flower and available for the bees.

Below is my miniature apple tree. I mainly see hoverflies and bumbles visiting this. Honey bees tend to favour big collections of one type of flower, so this wee tree is probably not worth it for them.

One of the first bees of the year I see in my garden is the enchantingly named female Hairy-footed flower bee . I always see them on the deep blue flowers of lithodora, which they will visit all day until the early evening. I say ‘see’ them but I usually hear them first, as they’re noisy little bees and very fast, efficient movers – which is why my photo is blurry!

Female hairy footed flower bee

Below is the male hairy footed flower bee, which I first start seeing a couple of weeks after the females. They visit the lithodora flowers too.

Male hairy footed flower bee (Anthophora plumipes)

Bluebells, daffodils and primroses grow in profusion in Cornwall. I can’t recall seeing as many primroses anywhere else I’ve lived in the UK. Most of the primroses are yellow, but there are some pink blooms too.

Bluebells and daffodils

Primroses

I went for a walk along the coast by St Mawes, where a variety of white flowers decorated the verges.

The ones below are not wild garlic, although they smelt very garlicky! Wild garlic flowers have a more star-like, upright shape.

Three cornered leek

Think these flowers below are three-cornered leek, which can be identified by the green stripes inside their flower. An edible plant which can be used like spring onions.

Three cornered leek

Below are stitchwort flowers, these grow along hedgerows and in woodland

Stitchwort

Sadly my bees, having survived the winter, somehow became queenless around March. I’m now bee-less for the first time in years. I will probably put out a bait hive soon as the bee year is beginning again. I still answer emails for my local association and the queries about swarms and bees in chimneys are just starting!