Recently,I stood next to a small patch of scrubby grassland. Roughly triangular in shape, bounded on each side by footpaths worn by countless walkers boots, it measured perhaps ten feet across with the rotting remains of a small tree, now reduced to just a few moss-covered logs in the the middle. Anyone, including me, would have glanced at it quickly, seen a tangle of leaflitter and nettles and passed by. But yesterday I was looking for a bee. I’m trying …
Tag: bees
It’s the thing that everyone is noticing but nobody is talking about. Where have all the bees gone? I have a small garden, full of bee-friendly flowers. Two years ago my plants had so many bees on them that the very air seemed to vibrate. Yesterday I spent three hours working in my garden. I saw four bees. Four. And it’s not just me. Up and down the country people have been saying the same thing to me. Try it …
This week I watched one of Britain’s unsung superheroes, a miniature marvel: the two-coloured mason bee. A sunny weekend in May is the best time to see these bees. But you will have to look closely, as mason bees are tiny things, smaller than your little fingernail, topping out at a fraction over a centimetre from nose to tail. The two-coloured mason bee is, as its name subtly implies, two-coloured, with a black head and thorax (front end) and a …
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