Loire Valley Nature: Bees

Showing posts with label Bees. Show all posts

Rural Tracks

Throughout France there is a network of variously named public rights of way. One of the most frequently encountered by walkers is the chemin rural (plural chemins ruraux). These are (usually) unpaved tracks owned and maintained by the local commune. They are almost always ancient laneways, winding through farms and today used by walkers, horse riders, hunters and farmers. Sometimes they are unmarked, but usually they have a small sign at either end with the letter R, C or V and an a number to identify them. They also frequently have the standardised walking trail symbols posted along them and appear on maps as part of the national hiking trail (randonnée) network. Even when they appear to be private farm tracks, the public is permitted to walk them. Walking them in all seasons is a great way to get to know the wildlife of this area, as they are usually long thin grasslands bordered by hedges, woodland or agricultural land, and sometimes even aquatic habitats such as streams, ditches, springs and ponds. You are unlikely to meet another person on most of them.

A chemin rural near Yzeures sur Creuse, October.

A notice issued by the local authority who has responsibility for maintaining this chemin rural, stapled to a trackside tree. It says that motorised vehicles are not permitted on this track between October and May ie the months when it is likely to be wet. The commune very sensibly does not want the track churned up and ruined by hunters' vans or farm machinery.

Bird watching in the Brenne down a track near la Maison du Parc.

Bird watching in the Brenne, near l'Etang vieux. This track had a sign temporarily banning agricultural vehicles because it was flooded, however that didn't stop anyone on foot who was prepared to take off their boots and slosh.

The sign on this track in the Brenne says 'Attention. Track under repair. Do not tow vehicles down it.' There was no problem (apart from ankle deep water) in walking down it.

A track through the bocage country along the River Vienne near Chinon.

A track through arable crop land and forest. This is one of my butterfly transects.

Mason, Leafcutter and Orchard Bees Megachilidae

Bees are generally easy to identify to genus level using a simple wing venation based key (such as the FSC Aidgap Key to Bees, Ants and Wasps) if you have a specimen. They are not so easy to identify from photos or to species level.

If you can provide several good quality photos the experts on the HymIS and BWARS forums may be able to identify your Megachilidae, but many are difficult from photos.

Mason and Orchard Bees Osmia spp:
For information about some common Osmia species, see a post on Days on the Claise, with photographs of European Orchard Bee O. cornuta and Red Mason Bee O. rufa. For further information, with good photos and some great observations, see Bees in a French Garden.

European Orchard Bee Osmia cornuta
See post on Days on the Claise for further information, including photographs of male. Below, a female investigates the possibilities of drainage hole in our back door as a potential nest hole, April.

A male European Orchard Bee Osmia cornuta stakes out a nest hole on our back door. He has emerged a few days earlier than the females in order that he can be ready the moment they emerge. He identifies holes occupied by females close to emerging by scent, using his antennae. He can be identified as male by his white facial hairs.

Mason, Potter or Wool Carder Bees Anthidium spp:

Anthidium spp are striking black and yellow bees, very active and fast moving and the males are aggressively protective of their territory, driving off all other insects (they are not threatening towards people though). There are a number of very similar species here. Like all Megachilids they collect pollen on special hairs on their bellies (clearly visible in the photo above). In some species the females also collect balls of fluff by scraping it off the undersides of vine leaves or from woolly plants such as Lambs Ears Stachys. The fluff is used to line nest holes. You can see a photo of a nest here, on Aigronne Valley Wildlife. Other species line the nest with pine resin. Unusually for a bee species, male Anthidiums are bigger than the females. Bees in a French Garden has a good entry on Anthidiums if you want further information.

Honey Bee - Apis mellifera

Scientific Name: Apis mellifera.

English Name: Honey Bee or Hive Bee.

French Name: L'Abeille européene.

A Honey Bee forages on apricot blossom in March.

5 Key Characters:

very distinctive wing venation, with a very long thin apical cell almost to wing tip.
a social species, living in large colonies, both domestic and wild.
makes wax comb nest of 6 sided cells (suspended vertically in the wild) and produces honey.
brown medium-large bee.
swarms in the spring.

Lookalikes: Other similar sized brown bees eg Andrena spp. There are also some flies which mimic Honey Bees very closely in appearance and behaviour in the field.

Habitat: Wild colonies build nests in hollow trees. Domestic hives can be found almost anywhere from the rooftops of high rise buildings in the city to rural gardens and orchards. Although common and welcomed in gardens as pollinators they are unable to pollinate vegetables of New World origin eg potatoes, tomatoes, chillies and peppers, and they are often not the most important pollinator of fruit trees.

Flight Period: Early spring to autumn.

Status: Very common.

More Info:
Post on Days on the Claise about Feral Bees.

Photographed by Loire Valley Nature:

Foraging on a dahlia.

A swarm (Fr. essaim) of feral honey bees on the forest fringe in the Parc de Boussay.

Honey Bees foraging in a sunflower crop.

Sweat Bees - Halictidae

Bees are generally easy to identify to genus level using a simple wing venation based key (such as the FSC Aidgap Key to Bees, Ants and Wasps) if you have a specimen. They are not so easy to identify from photos or to species level.

Halictus is a very large genus of bees, with 30 species occuring in France. They are ground nesting, and sometimes social, forming colonies, sometimes nesting individually. Nests are about 5mm in diameter, surrounded by a little pile of excavated soil. They are small-medium sized bees with dark bodies and pale bands on their abdomen. Identification to species level from photographs is usually very difficult and requires expert opinion. Many species are so similiar in appearance that even the experts on forums such as HymIS and BWARS often cannot tell them apart without examining actual specimens. They are also very difficult to tell from Lasioglossum spp (the key difference is the position of the abdominal bands, which are at the top of each segment in Halictus and at the bottom in Lasioglossum).

Halictus rubicundus, female (identified by Christian Schmid-Egger
on HymIS) photographed in March.

Halictus have more cylindrical abdomens than Andrena. They fly from early spring to mid-summer.

H. rubicundus has clear yellow hind tibiae and white abdominal bands. It is common and widespread.

Photographed by Loire Valley Nature:
All photos will enlarge in a new window if you click on them.

Halictus sp on Early Spider Orchid Ophrys sphegodes. Curiously this is a female bee (note the slit in the end of the abdomen), so sexual deception by the orchid is presumably not the lure.

Female Halictus sp on Early Spider Orchid O. sphegodes. The bee was very agitated and attempting to get into the orchid flower every which way. The flower is so newly opened that it is still upside down (they right themselves in time after opening).

Female Halictus sp on Early Spider Orchid O. sphegodes. The bee visited several flowers on the spike. In our orchard.

Row 1 - 4 female Lasioglossum sp at la Forge, May (identified by Christian Schmid-Egger on HymIS).

Violet Carpenter Bees - Xylocopa violacea

Scientific Name: Xylocopa violacea.

English Name: Violet Carpenter Bee.

French Name: L'Abeille charpentiere or Xylocope violacé

5 Key Characters:

the largest and most striking bee you will see in this area (20 - 25 mm long).
entirely irridescent blue black, including the wings.
not aggressive, and almost never stings.
often observed foraging in flowers, covered in pollen, or investigating holes in wooden structures.
loud buzz.

Lookalikes: X. valga, which is not so common here and the males do not have red tips to the antennae.

Habitat: Gardens, orchards, parks.

Flight Period: Spring, summer and autumn.

Status: Common.

References and Further Reading:
A post on Violet Carpenter Bees on our daily blog Days on the Claise.

Photographed by Loire Valley Nature:
All photos will enlarge in a new window if you click on them. Row 1 on columbine in a garden in Roux.

Foraging on Liatrus in a garden.

Foraging on ornamental sage Salvia sp in a garden.

Digger Wasps Crabronidae

Digger Wasps Crabronidae are a family of solitary species which mostly nest in burrows in the ground, sometimes forming large aggregations in a suitable patch of earth. The females usually have a comb on the front legs for digging. The females paralyse prey (caterpillars, spiders, beetles, flies, other insects) and stock the nests with an immobilised living larder for their larvae. Crabronidae is sometimes included in the Thread-waisted Wasps Sphecidae but most modern taxonomic lists split them. Both are part of the superfamily Apoidea, which includes bees.

Subfamily Philanthinae
Beewolf Philanthus triangulum: head projects further forward than most Crabronidae, which have rather flat fronted head level with the eyes. Females have a sturdy digging comb on the front legs. Nests in sand, making burrows which it stocks with Honey Bees Apis mellifera. The bees are caught, paralysed and carried to the burrow underneath the Beewolf's body. Abdomen yellow, usually with black triangles. Adults active July - September. Also known as the Bee Killer.

A Philanthinae Digger Wasp, possibly a Beewolf, on Eryngium spp (in a garden). To the left, the parasitic fly Eriothrix rufomaculata.

Cerceris arenaria: the most common of the Philanthinae subfamily of wasps. Females have a digging comb on the front legs. The first abdominal segment is rounded, with two prominent yellow spots. The abdominal segments are very clearly delineated, as though the wasp is tied up like a piece of roast meat. Adults active May - September. Makes deep nest burrows in sand, stocked with weevils. There are a number of lookalike closely related species.

Cerceris cf arenaria.

Buff/White Tailed Bumblebee - Bombus terrestris/lucorum

It is very often not possible to distinguish these two species in the field, so they are dealt with together here.

Scientific Name: Bombus terrestris / lucorum.

English Name: Buff / White Tailed Bumblebee.

French Name: Le Bourdon terrestre / des bois or des saussaies (='ground buzzer', 'wood buzzer' or 'sallow/willow buzzer').

5 Key Characters:

a yellow 'collar' band on the front of the thorax and near the front of the abdomen. (B. lucorum males can have a yellow fringe on the scutellum.)
white 'tail' (buff or with a buff band in B. terrestris queens).
face black (yellow in B. lucorum males).
large, long abdomened bumblebees.
the earliest emerging bumblebees in the area (February), and can be seen occasionally through the winter.

Lookalikes: The two species are notoriously difficult to separate. The yellow hairs tend to be more tawny, darker or golden in B. terrestris and a brighter lemon yellow in B. lucorum. Workers are impossible to separate in the field or from photographs, males may be separated by the presence or absence of yellow on the face, queens by the presence or absence of buff on the tail. B. terrestris queens tend to be slightly larger. To complicate matters further, B. lucorum is actually a species complex of 3 species - B. lucorum, B. magnus and B. cryptarum. Other bumblebees with a white tail and two yellow bands are B. soroeensis (the abdominal band is interrupted), and the cuckoo bumblebees B. vestalis ( strong yellow flashes at the top of the white tail), B. bohemicus ( pale yellow collar), and B. sylvestris (tip of abdomen sometimes reddish). None of these lookalike species are anywhere near as common and ubiquitous as B. terrestris or B. lucorum. Do not confuse with another common and ubiquitous species, the Garden Bumblebee B. hortorum, which has an additional yellow band at the back of the thorax which runs into the band on the abdomen. Pale form males can be mistaken for B. jonellus, which do not have a black band at the base of the abdomen dividing the yellow on the scutellum and the yellow on the abdomen.

Habitat: Many habitats, including gardens.

Flight Period: February-March-April-May-June-July-August-September-October.

Status: Common and widespread.

Photographed by Loire Valley Nature:
Photographs are numbered from left to right, and top to bottom. All photos will enlarge in a new window if you click on them. 1 worker foraging on Red Clover Trifolium pratense in our orchard, May.