Day 6: Getting tired

Day 6 of my #30DaysWild adventure has had it’s up’s and down’s. It often gets to this time of  year and I start feeling slightly sad that we’ve already seen the best of spring.

Don’t you ever feel like you want to stop the world and get off for a bit? Days, weeks and months feel like they’re disappearing far too fast – maybe it’s “me age”. Probably.

So, to take in as much as I possibly could today, I sat in the garden and just “watched”.

Inevitably it was the bees that caught my eye. The poor old female red mason bees looked like I felt. Tired and a bit jaded round the edges. One landed on the arm of my chair and seemed to share time with me before getting back to the important job of completing her nest in the bee hotel.

It won’t be long before the red mason bees have finished their nests, and already there are new visitors to the bee hotel and garden.

This Mournful Wasp – Pemphredon lugubris (not sure where it gets its depressing name from), is actually doing me a big favour in the garden, apparently it catches up to 40 aphids to fill each nesting chamber it builds for its young (also in the bee hotel).

They’re welcome to the aphids as long as they leave a few for the ladybirds!

In the mini-meadow the Ox-eye daisies are starting to bloom, and this small solitary bee was feeding. Such a delicate little thing, it makes you wonder how something that small manages to survive more than a day – let alone a few weeks.

So now I guess we need to welcome summer… and leave spring behind.

Day 5: It’s all about the bees!

Day 5 of my #30DaysWild challenge was spent eagerly awaiting the release of this film about solitary bees.

I wasn’t disappointed. This really is well worth watching. Enjoy!]

Day 1: #30DaysWild

I’ve signed up to the Wildlife Trusts #30DaysWild Challenge this month – and will be trying to commit acts of random wildness for the whole of June. So watch out!

Day one, and the weather wasn’t ideal but at lunchtime I did  manage to slip away from my desk for 30 mins to sit with the bees at the solitary bee hotel and munch on a sandwich.

Not a lot of action, it has to be said, but it still helped to clear my head for a few minutes and I guess that’s the idea of the campaign.

Marmite and crisp sandwich and bees. Doesn’t get much better!

We seem to have lost our connection with nature, technology has taken over for the majority of our lives – sometimes you just have to say “stuff it” and get away from it all.

Mating Red Mason Bees – oooo errr!

Well, that’s exactly what I did, and there’s nothing quite like the cute pollen laden bottom of a red mason bee to make you smile and ready for an afternoon of work! Honest!

Who couldn’t love that bottom!???

If you fancy taking part in #30DaysWild you can still join in the fun – just go to the special #30DaysWild website here 

My Top Six Garden Bumblebees (Plus One!)

Forgive me blogging-friend for I have sinned. It has been 40 days since my last blog. I seek forgiveness by giving you my “Top Six Bumbles” and promise to do many, many hours of penance in front of my computer in the coming months.

Buff Tailed Bumblebee (Bombus terrestris) photographed June 2009

The secret world of wasps, bees & ants

If I say the word “wasp” or “bee” what do you instantly imagine? An annoying wasp buzzing round your burger at a BBQ? a hairy bumble-bee bumping it’s way round your garden flowers? What about this beauty below? a bee, wasp or ant?

Butterflies & Bumbles

I was really surprised to see both butterflies and bumbles still flying around the last of the flowers in my garden. No doubt in the next few weeks, once the nights get colder, they will be gone.