December 2018

I was saddened to (belatedly) read of Dave Saunders’ experience with hornets in October’s Pett and Pett Level News.  He clearly had a lucky escape.  I still think that they are magnificent insects but I would always recommend treating them with caution.  Both wasps and hornets behave differently around their nests than when they are out foraging.  If one stings you away from the nest because you accidentally disturbed it or it got caught in your clothes, it will be a defensive sting and it will fly away once it is free.  If, however, you are nearer to its nest, and it feels that you are a threat to its colony then when it stings it will release pheromones that will effectively ‘call out the troops’ and attract others to assist.  So Dave did well to run inside, and I expect that the colony has since been destroyed.  I am a nature lover but sometimes, reluctantly, it needs to be controlled.

I am writing this in mid-November and though the leaves on the trees have finally started to assume their autumn colours, many are still in full leaf.  Many plants are still in flower –we even have some self-seeded broad beans in our vegetable patch in flower at the moment, though we are not expecting them to produce any sort of crop, even if there is anything still around to pollinate them.  There are still a few butterflies around and I still find the occasional caterpillar on next year’s brassicas that should have been safely left alone by now. If autumn continues to get later and spring continues to get earlier, we will soon have nothing left to call winter and we will just have year round strange and violent weather.  The recent IPCC report that warned of catastrophic climate change unless drastic action is taken now, seems to have been ignored by the government, who despite their current preoccupation with Brexit, have done nothing to promote green policies, in fact, quite the reverse.   (The news today reports that a government advisory panel has at last seen the link between meat production and climate change, so maybe there is some hope.)

But does it matter?  I wrote last time about various species moving northwards, which is interesting but otherwise not normally a problem.  I think that the real problem as far as the natural world is concerned (aside from the violent weather events) is a matter of timing.  I came across a case recently that illustrates this well.  One of our scarcer plants is the Early Spider-orchid.  This is very similar in appearance to the more common Bee Orchid and the flowers attract bees in a similar way. (I wonder why it’s called a Spider-orchid!)  They are pollinated by a rather vaguely named solitary bee – the buffish mining bee (Andrena nigroaenea should you wish to address it formally) and the flowers emit a scent that resembles that of the female buffish mining bee, so that the male will be attracted to the flower.  In most species of solitary bee it is the male that emerges first, and the females usually appear up to a couple of weeks later.  So for the Early Spider Orchid, the best strategy is to flower after the males emerge, but before the females emerge.  If it flowers either before the males emerge, or after the females emerge, then it stands much less chance of being pollinated, and that timing is going wrong so the Early Spider Orchid is one of the many plants in decline.

Bee Orchid

The Early Spider-orchid is just one example and there are many more.  Evolution over millions of years has ensured that plants and animals make the right connections, whether that is blue tits relying on oak caterpillars to feed their chicks, or ivy bees pollinating ivy.  It has taken millions of years to get the timing right, and we have managed to screw it up in less than 200 years.  Depressing, isn’t it?  But there’s so much beauty still out there, whether it be a hornet, a stray late butterfly, or the autumn colours, so go out and enjoy it and protect it when you can.

Yellow-legged Mining Bee

Female Tawny Mining Bee - definitely tawny and not the least bit buffish

November 2018

One of the really pleasurable aspects of writing these Nature Notes is that people come to me with nature-related questions or send me photos of things to identify.  Most of the time I have a good idea of the answers, or at least a good idea of where to go to look for the answer.  One question was “Why so many crane flies?”.  My answer (Perhaps because of the dry summer making the ground hard and so difficult for birds to eat the leatherjackets.) was completely wrong.  The correct answer is the wet autumn of 2017 which allowed the leatherjackets to thrive, and also, the fact that certain insecticides have been banned which used to poison the leatherjackets (and lots of pollinators too!).  But at least I now know, and I had the pleasure of trawling the internet to look it up.

One of the Facebook groups I belong to also spawned a trawl for more information.  Somebody had opened a bird box that had been home to a bumblebee colony and was asking what the white fibrous material was.  Somebody had answered that it was the silk of Aphomia which is a parasite of bumblebees, honey bees, and wasps.  So I then wanted to know what Aphomia was – it is better known as the Bee Moth or Aphomia sociella. 

Bee Moth - Aphomia sociella

The female bee moth lays her eggs in the colony early in the season – i.e. before the first workers hatch to build up the colony’s defences.  When the bee moth larvae hatch they will eat eggs, bee or wasp larvae, and any pollen or nectar they can find.  (The caterpillars spin a particularly strong silk cocoon to protect themselves while feeding.)   So if you do clean out your bird boxes – and now is a good time to do it – then please destroy any caterpillars you find in there, and just be aware of queen wasps that often use nest boxes to hibernate in.  If you want to attract birds to your nest box, then clean out any old nesting material, but if you want to attract bumblebees, then leave the nesting material in there, or better still get another nest box and do both.

One interesting thing that I found out about bee moths was their mating habits.  Most female moths emit pheromones when they are ready to mate, and most male moths have large feathery antennae so that they can detect them.  In the case of male bee moths, they also emit their own pheromones to increase their chances of encountering a female.  But the really interesting thing about the male bee moth is that he has another weapon in his charm arsenal – he can emit ultrasonic ‘chirps’ in much the same way that cicadas do so that the females can more easily find him.  What I’d be interested to know if I was a male bee moth is – can bats detect my ultrasonic ‘chirps’?  I also found out that the sound is emitted from the tegular tymbals, but nobody needs to know that unless they accidentally come across a pair.

To move away from the endlessly fascinating world of insects for a moment – there are a lot of jays about just now.  There a lot of jays about all the time, but at this time of year they are collecting and caching acorns and other seeds, and so are more conspicuous.  They are the most colourful of the crow family with their beautiful dark pink plumage and pale blue wing flashes.  Like other members of the crow family they are very intelligent and will remember where most of the seeds are buried so that they do not starve through the winter when other food is scarce and energy demands are high.  One fact about jays that can help with identification is that they are the only crow-sized bird with a white rump, a useful feature since most birds are seen when flying away from you.

It seems to be a good year for parasol mushrooms.  They’re edible and delicious fried in a little butter.

Stop Press:  An Asian Hornet has been spotted at Dungeness.  The Asian hornet is more of a threat to honey bees than its larger cousin the European hornet.

When this article went to press for the printed version, I had confused Bee moths (Aphomia sociella) with the similar Wax Moth (Galleria mellonella).  The Wax Moth is normally found in honey bee hives as its larvae feed on honeycombs - particularly old honeycombs so that they are less of a burden to the colony than Bee Moths.