The Tawny Mining Bee again..and some painterly anxieties.

In between other work I have also been working on two more bee commissions. It has been a chance to paint again the beautiful Tawny Mining bee Andrena fulva and the Common Carder bee Bombus pascuorum.

I often work on several pieces at once and have learnt, the hard way, that it’s good to put things aside for a while.
Unsatisfactory things can be forgotten but glaring inadequacies may be illuminated. So it’s a double edged sword. I put them away, completely out of sight, hidden away in a folder and always get them out again with some trepidation.

Years ago I used to work late into the night, worrying away at some problem detail. I would go to bed in a happy self deluded state, only to realise next morning how completely dreadful it all was.
Now I don’t do that. I put the work away for a while and try to forget about it and then reassess with a fresh eye.

So it’s been about a week since I saw these two paintings and mercifully they seemed just fine.
But of course there is always another half a day of faffing about, primping and adjusting, after which you will be MUCH more satisfied and the casual observer (aka long suffering partner) will see no difference at all..

Well?  How does that look now??”  “Fine , just fine..” “Oh only fine? what about the bit I changed?” “What bit?”  “Well the hairs on the left tibia of course..” “Ahhh.. That bit. Well that looks fine too”. “You think it’s Ok then?” “Yes” “I mean, better than before?” “Yes” “Was it not very good then?” “It was and is just fine “…….

and so it goes on..
But inevitably, at some uncertain point,  even when racked with indecision and doubt, you have to say….”That’s it!..Finished!”

Actually  I do really like these two.. 🙂 So here is my “Foxy Lady of the Bee World” again. I saw her in the spring, taking a break on the clematis which is twining around the trellis on the shed. She was basking in the sun, a little spot of fiery foxy two tone red…just gorgeous! first rough…

image

and the (maybe….almost) finished  painting..

image

but I still have a day to go before delivery….

Two Lovely Bees for Liz; The Early Bumble Bee and the Grey Mining Bee.

The last few weeks have been very busy and, with hardly any internet connection, very frustrating blogwise.
However in my makeshift studio at my father’s house, (rickety picnic table with clip light fixed to hoe handle) I could at least work on my two bee commissions.

It gives me great pleasure to work on commissions because they are a chance to make paintings which are very personal to your clients. We will discuss the whys and wherefores at some length and this collaborative approach means they will have a painting which is just for them and has a resonance and meaning beyond just the image.

So Liz and I had discussed which bee and why and decided on the Grey Mining Bee which is such a favourite with its beautiful black and white silky coat and secondly the lovely Early Bumble Bee with her smart red rump. There were several things which made these choices special to Liz.

She particularly wanted the ginkgo leaves to be included as she has a magnificent old ginkgo tree growing in her garden. So the leaves I drew are from her tree.
The hawthorn leaves were from the local hedgerow and the two little bees had been found near Lincoln, which was a strange coincidence because Liz once lived near there many years ago. I had written about the Grey Mining Bee Andrena cineraria  before (see “The Glamorous Grey Mining Bee”)

Here is Liz’ bee hovering above a sprig of hawthorn, a favourite flower with this and many other early bees.

final cineraria 2

The Grey Mining Bee Andrena cineraria and Hawthorn.


Watercolour and pencil 9 x 9” I drew and wrote about handsome the Early Bumble Bee here Bombus pratorum …and Mr. Sladen” and included Sladen’s poignant piece about the death of the queen. It’s a lovely piece of writing as is all the writing in his wonderful book about bumble bees, The Humble Bee’ It’s Life History and How To Domesticate It.

I now have the reprinted copy which also contains the facsimile of his first handmade bee book. It’s completely charming.

Here then is Liz’ Early Bumble Bee flying up through the ginkgo leaves which are catching a light spring breeze. Bees do not forage from ginkgo trees but Liz’ garden looked to be a haven for wild bees and I just know she will be seeing these pretty bees in the spring next year.

ginkgo and bee

The Early Bumblebee Bombus pratorum and Ginkgo leaves.

Watercolour and pencil 9 x 9”. I am so delighted when people commission a bee. It’s not perhaps the most usual request but gives me hope that bees are getting a higher profile and winning a well deserved place in people’s hearts.
I am really looking forward to the day when bees outsell fluffy kittens…OK, I know… I may have to wait a while :).

There is more work to be done to popularise bees, their undoubted charm and tireless good works and I will be continuing that next year both in the UK and in the USA… But, for the next few weeks I will be somewhere completely different.

I will be seeing what is happening in New Orleans for a while! Bees ? I hope so. What else? Who knows. It will just be a voyage of discovery!

Foxy Lady of the Solitary Bee World, the Tawny Mining Bee.

This is another bee I painted before for Deborah’s 16 bee set here. It’s the lovely Tawny Mining bee, Andrena fulva who leaves little volcanoes in your lawn after  digging out her nest. It is one of my favourites, she is so pretty.
I wrote about it before too, but I am repeating this quote from David Kendall’s site from my previous post, because it is worth repeating and timely.

The female bee makes a small volcano-like mound with the soil excavated from the nest. There may be many nests close together, giving the impression of communal life, but each female is actually working alone. Nesting activity lasts only a short time (perhaps 2-3 weeks), after which the small mounds of earth around each nest entrance soon disappear, with no permanent damage to the lawn.
Take care not to confuse solitary bee nest mounds with the mounds of earth caused by the nesting activity of ant colonies. Solitary bee mounds have a single large entrance hole in the middle, and by watching for a short while on a warm sunny day, you will see the bees coming and going to collect pollen.

If left alone, these bees will often nest in the same area year after year, and provide an annual service by pollinating your early flowering fruit trees and shrubs (apples, pears, currants and gooseberries) and other garden plants – so helping to ensure good crops later in the year.

from his very nice readable site “Insects and other Arthropodshere.

Let’s hear it for the Solitary Bees!!

My hesitant efforts to promote the exhibition,  were rewarded recently with an email from an organisation who are having a  “bee support” campaign.
They said they were not really interested in what I was doing because it was about solitary bees and their concern was for honey bees.
I was quite dismayed at this remark (understatement!) which smacks rather of the French attitude which Paul fromSolitary Bee encounters.
Perhaps it came from someone who doesn’t really know much about bees in general (..  she says, trying to be kind), but it did make me more determined to be a champion of these important  “other” bees.
I do realise that, to win the place in our hearts and minds that honey bees occupy, solitary bees have quite long way to go, but they have so much going for them and they serve us so very well.
I know there are quite a few of us out there who feel the same.
I feel a ranting blog post and campaign coming on !… and how could you not love a little Tawny Mining bee!!

The Painting
I know what I wanted for this one so not so much dithering.
She is perching on a twig looking down at the nest she has excavated.

rufa sketch

These are really neat little bees with shortish hair which stands out from the body .. I think I described them before as rather like little bottle brushes. (think of the tree!).
I was going to make this the title of the blog post (“Bottle Brush of the Bee World”) but didn’t want to be responsible for any harm coming to Tawny Mining bees: you know how stupid some people can be.

I have a reasonable scanner but it does average the colours out and I don’t have time to play around with things too much, but in the original she in much more a two tone foxy redhead, as she should be.

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The Tawny Mining Bee.. Loveable .. YES..!


Tawney mining bee

Watercolour and pencil on Arches HP.   8×7”

The Tawny Mining Bee: Andrena fulva

Small volcanoes erupting in your lawn in spring are a sure sign that you have some mining bees hard at work, and how very cute they are too.. and numerous.

I must admit my heart sank when I read there are over 1,300 species in the world…which one to choose?

I decided on a  European one and one from the USA. From Europe this is Andrena fulva  the winsome little Tawny Mining Bee, extremely pretty in two tone russet and ginger, looking like a little bottle brush.

This is the female. the male is not quite so colourful.
The bee world has some very big colourful girls, rather the opposite to the bird world! Photo of the male Andrena fulva by J C Shou, from great photo site Biopix here

andrena fulva male

Mining Bees or Digger Bees are solitary  and “IBRA” the International Bee Research Association has a  good PDF about solitary bees here.

This is what they say about Andrena fulva

The adults over winter in the ground and emerge in the spring. The females dig a tunnel into the ground, hence the need for easily workable soil, where the earth is bare or the grass is short. The tunnels are about 9mm in diameter and descend to a depth of 20 to 40 cm.
At the end of the tunnel the bee will construct an oval cell and provision it with pollen and nectar. An egg is laid in
the cell, which is then sealed up. She then goes on to construct other branches to her tunnel and repeats the process laying about 5 eggs in her lifetime.
On cold days bees need to warm up before they can fly and so females are often seen in the morning sunbathing by tunnel entrances. “

bee-info42
Illustration from “How stuff works”  here.

And below, a lovely photo from Dick at www.citybirding.blogspot.com of his little tawny mining bee peeping out of her burrow.. he says;

“Once in their nest they stay quite still just below the opening until you get near and they shoot back down to the bottom of the nest, out of sight”

But, don’t worry about your pristine lawns.. just live with it for a few weeks and enjoy the bees. David Kendall is an Entomologist and has these kindly word for this pretty and useful bee,

“The Tawny Mining Bee (Andrena fulva) is one of several species, commonly seen around gardens in early spring, which dig nest burrows in lawns and similar places.
This bee is about the same size as a honeybee, but covered with fairly dense golden hairs.
The female bee makes a small volcano-like mound with the soil excavated from the nest.

There may be many nests close together, giving the impression of communal life, but each female is actually working alone. Nesting activity lasts only a short time (perhaps 2-3 weeks), after which the small mounds of earth around each nest entrance soon disappear, with no permanent damage to the lawn.

Take care not to confuse solitary bee nest mounds with the mounds of earth caused by the nesting activity of ant colonies. Solitary bee mounds have a single large entrance hole in the middle, and by watching for a short while on a warm sunny day, you will see the bees coming and going to collect pollen.
If left alone, these bees will often nest in the same area year after year, and provide an annual service by pollinating your early flowering fruit trees and shrubs (apples, pears, currants and gooseberries) and other garden plants – so helping to ensure good crops later in the year.

from his very nice readable site “Insects and other Arthropods” here

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Some preliminary sketches: I feel I should have included a little volcano and a ray of warming sunshine too.

sketch bg      colsk sm

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Bee No 8: The Female Tawny Mining Bee, Andrena fulva

andrena col 

Watercolour on Arches HP w/col paper: image 3.5 “