Natural Beekeeping International Forum

[tai haku]

So since I posted pictures of our Colletes colony I've received the wonderful Field Guide to the Bees of Great Britain and Ireland and have been working on identifying some of the bees we have in our orchard (as well as further afield). I thought it'd be fun to share where we've got to (identifications subject to correction!) and continue to update. I've fallen in love with the tiny kleptoparasitic nomad bees; we have several species only some of which are identifiable...

The easiest for me is Nomada fucata with its single spot.


followed by the Yellow-legged nomad bee, Nomada succinta




This could be one of a couple of species but shows characters that should make it Nomada flava

[Tavascarow]

Beautiful images.

[tai haku]

there are a few genera I've only found one species of in the garden so far. Apis is one obviously.....
Red Mason Bee, Osmia bicornis. We have some mason bee boxes up but they ain't using them


This is one the identification of which completely flumoxed me but a friendly chap on the internet tells me its one of the metallic green furrow bees Lassioglossum sp. - there are 3 options and it'd take collection and a microscope to go any further. It was absolutely tiny...





and of course the aforementioned ivy bees, Colletes hederae

[tai haku]

[tai haku]

and our bumbles....
Bumbles are weird here compared to the UK:

Our buff-tailed bumblebees look like white-tailed bumble bees. This is Bombus terrestris terrestris, a different subspecies to the UK's


and our common carder bees look more like brown-banded carder bees...This is Bombus pascuorum.


Bombus

This is a worker of the Early Bumblebee I think, Bombus pratorum. The only one I've seen so far...


I still have at least one species of bumblebee in the garden to photograph (red-tailed) and suspect I have cuckoo bees kicking around also.

[4nd73j]

some really beautiful brightly coloured bees there!!

[tai haku]

A few more....
hairy-footed flower bee, Anthophora plumipes
IMG_0006 by Wayne, on Flickr

anthophora plumipes by Wayne, on Flickr

[Chippy]

What a fantastic collection of photographs, thanks for these.

[arewethereyet]

I love your bees and your photographs. Thank you

[catchercradle]

Love all the images,