Tag: bees

On my walk today I saw…

  By

At last sun and warmth has returned. I had to go out. So I took a walk around a small pond which feeds into the main lake here and I remembered my camera.

Round the Pond We have had lots of rain and the water levels are high. Tiny fish and a million tadpoles have made a temporary home of  submerged grass and dollarweed. (Tadpole bottom right)

tadpole

Lovely shells of the fresh water apple snails are washed up.

snail.sm jpg

The grackles are grackling… as only grackles can.

The redwing blackbirds are for once letting me actually get a picture of their red flashed wings, but when I try to get one in flight….. I get this ..
redwing bbd sm     redwing feet

Coots and moorhens are dabbling, the big stately wood stork circled overhead before coming to join an egret for some fishing.

woodstork 4     woodstork 3

woodstork

On one of the nest platforms by the big lake an osprey has settled with a fish in its talons.

osprey sm

On another, two cormorants are surveying their domain.

corms sm

There is a beautiful spicebush swallowtail basking in the sun.

clouded green

Also by the main lake today I see the bald eagles, which for me is a bit of a “wow!”. They may be making a nest in one of these pines.  Two people I have spoken to recently said they had seen them tearing off branches and flying backwards and forward from the trees. No 1 eagle….

bald e1

and 5 trees down the path,  no 2 eagle….

bald 2

They are big birds, this is a long shot of the tree with no 2  sitting on the second to top tier of branches on the left.

tree

I think its quite something to see a bald eagle right in the middle of Orlando.

More Bees!
Every living thing is enjoying the sun, including me and the bees!!
Sorry .. you just can’t get away from the bees entirely. A few more wild flowers are struggling up now and there is a patch of this pretty little thing on the grass bank near the shoreline.
It is Narrowleaf blue-eyed grass  Sisyrinchium angustifolium, easily overlooked, but with the most beautiful flower structure and a lovely ultramarine blue  In the centre of each blossom is a small patch of yellow.

The style, which is long, is tipped by a  three-cleft stigma. Little tiny bees laden with pollen, which I think are probably Halicitid bees of some kind,  land on the flower and at  first seem to feed on the pollen from the top of the stigma then climb right on top, balancing on the point and thereby transferring pollen to their legs.
It is comical to watch they shake the flower vigorously, and look like spinning plates on sticks.

     

bee4      bee2

I may send a photo up to Buglife for an identification, but they are probably not good enough quality. Shame I can’t draw one of these for the exhibition.

Maybe my next exhibition will be USA bees..

The Tiny White Faced Bee

  By

You would hardly think this was a bee would you?

And no, regarding the date, it’s not a joke! Although if I had had time, a fantasy new bee species would have been excellent. This is the little White Faced bee from the Hylaeus family, Hylaeus hyalinatus and at only around 6 mm it must be one of the smallest bees found in Britain and more wasp like than bee like.
There are several species found in the UK. They are all very similar and tricky to tell apart individually. For information on identification go to BWARS.

This particular one is a male and has some white hairs on the face, which you can’t see on my low res image.
Sometimes they are called masked bees, or yellow faced bees,  sometimes they have creamier yellow markings.

They are almost hairless and, unlike most other bees do not have any external pollen carrying equipment, but store the collected pollen in their crop. You are most likely to see them on umbellifers and the curious Reseda luteola plant, or “weld” which is interesting on it’s own account.
You will have seen it growing on wasteland, a rather straggly nondescript plant. However it is one of the ancient dye plants, which yields a beautiful yellow dye, and is commonly known as Dyer’s Rocket.
The photo below is from John Crellin’s excellent and extensive site Floralimages.co.uk on UK wild plants and fungi.

reseda_luteola_1382

Floralimages.co.uk   Photgrapher John Crellin

And its flowers reward a closer look too.

450px-Reseda_luteola_(inflorescense)

Photo by Hans Hillewaert  from Wiki

The Painting

As with the Lasioglossum I painted a couple of days ago,  I am struck by what a different world they inhabit. Perched precariously on top of swaying stamens peering over the tops of petals or looking down from the dizzying heights of a trembling leaf.

Initially I had designated the centre of a buttercup for the drawing, with this smart little bee clambering over the stamens, but in the end, opted for placing him right at the top of one umbel of the flat topped umbel cluster of Common Hogweed (Heracleum nsphondylium.

sketch 3sm     on cow parsely sm

white faced 1sm

_______________________________________________________

White Faced Bee on Hogweed

Hylaeus sm

watercolour and pencil on Arches HP 8”x 7”

A Bee for Buglife.. go to their show in April!

  By

I promised Buglife something for their annual raffle, so today I have sent them a print of a little watercolour which I painted yesterday. This time I was quite happy with the quality and colour (yes I am very fussy) so I will also be having some for sale at “BUZZ”. I do like people to have a quality product so I now have some good quality watercolour paper and also some professional  finishing spray which protects the print.

single bee sm

This was my first sketch which I am rather fond of and then the watercolour with the cornflower added.

bee2 sm

I have been reading more and more about the plight of bees, the awful effects of pesticides and the loss of habitats, so I really want to do a bit more to help. I am not sure if the originals will sell at the exhibition, whose point is really just to spread the word about the “other” bees”, but I think prints might.

So I will be reviving my dormant Etsy account soon, and if I sell anything I will be able make a donation or two to bee/insect/wildlife charities. Thinking about what Buglife are doing I may well raffle these two original paintings at my exhibition.
The lucky winner of my signed print at the Buglife open day will also get a card of  Bombus pascuorum and an extra gift of a bookmarky thing which will encourage them not only to come to the exhibition but to support bees as well.

print and bkmk
Bookmarks, badges, cards, prints .. well why not !

BUGLIFE. org If you don’t know about Buglife they really are a great organisation, dedicated to

“Conserving the small things that run the world” Buglife is the only organisation in Europe devoted to the conservation of all invertebrates, and we are passionately committed to saving Britain’s rarest little animals, everything from bees to beetles, and spiders to snails.”

I wrote about them a couple of days ago when I heard their wonderful proposal for “rivers of flowers” across the UK, to provide wildlife corridors for bugs. Amongst bee related things on their site you can find:

They are involved in many many projects and they have an open day in April which non members can attend for just £5 for adults and £2.50 for children which includes a light buffet lunch.

Buglife Members Day and Open Day 2010

Saturday 17 April, from 10:45am to 3pm at The Engine Group, 60 Great Portland Street, London, W1W 7RT. There will be talks and workshops, including these,  all of which I would like to hear.

  • Life without chocolate, strawberries and coffee – a world without bugs’
  • ‘Little nippers – Meet the freshwater crabs of Sri Lanka’
  • ‘Dead wood is good wood for the Golden hoverfly’
  • ‘Up on the Downs – chalk grassland butterflies and their conservation’

We will have live bugs, interesting displays, and activities for children. The Buglife team will be there to talk to you about our conservation work, wildlife gardening and how you can get involved.”

It sounds like a fascinating day, I am sorry I can’t be there and of course, if you enter the raffle you might win my little print… but, a life without chocolate?  Unthinkable!

Learn to Love Dandelions: Dandelions and Bees

  By

shutterstock_44456344
Photo by Ernita at Shutterstock.com

The Enemy of my Father

I used to earn my pocket money by gardening. It left me with a delight in growing things, a love of digging, a hatred of mowing and a passion for weeding.
This was instilled in me by my father who, although a passionate gardener was adamant that things had their place and in our garden, then surrounded on every side by fields, ancient grazing, hedges, dykes, and flower filled verges ( yes this is some time ago) the place of the “weeds” was very firmly on the other side of the straggly wire fence.

My father battled with everything in the garden, with mice, birds, squirrels, this pest, that pest , this canker, that whitefly, the insidious “Yorkshire Fog” and creeping “twitch”, but his greatest foe was, and still is, the Dandelion.

At 92 he is now incapable of much weeding, but if the CIA really could have floored a goat with one stare, my father would have been lining up for training, so that he could march around the garden glaring at dandelions, in his endless and hopeless campaign to eradicate these cheery yellow interlopers.

He wasn’t a great user of chemicals mostly because he was thrifty and, in his eyes, hard work can accomplish most things, so I have fond memories of crowbar-ing flagstones and lifting patches of lawn and excavating huge holes, deep enough to find bedrock, in our relentless search for the dread taproot.

On my last trip home I was ordered to weed the flagged patio. Dandelions love these little narrow gaps between stones don’t they? No hoe or fork or knife can do much more than behead them, which is as nothing to a dandelion. I

am sure that one day soon my father will glance out of the French windows, see a new, dancing, mocking dandelion thumbing its nose at him from between stones and die of apoplectic rage.

At first I just did a bit of beheading but, if my father’s hearing is non existent his eyesight is excellent, and I was told I had been sloppy, and sent back out to do a proper job. I was reluctant but they had to go, I just can’t be held responsible for my father’s early demise (if at 92 that is possible) can I?

shutterstock_13441678 “

Bee” in Dandelions by Duncan de Young at Shutterstock

The Friend of Bees

Despite my tentative pleading of the benefits of weeds, my fathers position remains firm. I have learnt to love them, especially dandelions and I have said before on the blog that one very good way to help bees is to stop weeding, or at least have a weedy wild patch. (As I write this I feel waves of stunned and pitying disapproval winging their way from the UK.. “my daughter has completely lost her mind”.. he will be thinking).

I am currently drawing some of the tiny little solitary bees, and they love the dandelion family.. as do all bees. The importance to bees of this pretty, if tenacious, weed cannot be over emphasised.

Their long flowering season and rich nectar and pollen source, gives an early boost to emerging bees and keeps them going in the autumn too.  Some different bees enjoying dandelions;

 

shutterstock_29155132     shutterstock_47459008

Photos Kirschner and  Anna Dorobek

shutterstock_1387075     shutterstock_13133992

Photos  Yaroslav and dpaint

shutterstock_30597922     shutterstock_18147862

Photos  Dmitri Melnik and Alexander Maksimov

shutterstock_1506786-1     shutterstock_1322372

Photos Hway Kiong Lim and Laurie Barr …and of course they are not just for the bees;

 

shutterstock_1855194

Photo, Titus Manea All the above photographs are reproduced with the very kind permission of Shutterstock.com…

 

A Childhood Sweetheart and Artist’s Inspiration

I am sure you all know the other benefits of dandelions.. it would be a dull and sad child who has never blown a dandelion clock or made a little salad for an apprehensive parent, and the internet is full of excellent info and enthusiasts!
But my blog friend Curtiss Clark who aside from running the Newtown BEE  newspaper (Hmm, I wonder how we met 🙂 )  keeps a lovely blog and back in 2006 wrote this; “In Defense of Dandelions” .

It’s as thoughtful and delightful a piece as any dandelion lover could wish for. He extols their virtues, reminds us of carefree days and wants to restore the place they had in our hearts when we were children:

“We are beaten year after year by the botanical equivalent of a smiley face. For certain scowley-faced green-lawn-obsessive guys I know, it’s infuriating. Sometimes our own ideas ruin the world for us. While we are feverishly poisoning dandelions and pulling them out by the roots, we are often simultaneously enriching the soil of garden beds so that we may plant asters, or daisies, or marigolds, or sunflowers, or zinnias, all of which are first cousins of the dandelion in the family Asteraceae.

If we can ever reconcile the green lawn guys with the dandelion, the world would be a brighter place. But getting them to lie down with their rival weed is a little like getting the lamb to lie down with the lion.

It’s a lovely piece Curtiss! (Which I may read to my father when I am home in June, if he has survived the spring emergence.)   The humble Dandelion has inspired many artists and designers.. hundreds of us appreciate its beauty, intricacy and mystery, in every part of its life cycle, especially those gorgeous seed heads.  Here are two 2 favourite images of mine which go a little beyond the cheery yellow.

objimage

A beautiful intricate Stewart Maclennan, woodengraving made in 1940
from the Museum of New Zealand here.

I am very fond of his work, as I am of Charles Burchfield who I have written about before. Here is a late work Dandelion Seed Heads and the Moon (1961-65)

burchfield dandelions

This painting is mentioned in a conversation about Burchfield between Hunter Drohojowksa-Philp and Robert Gober, which you can read online at Artnet here

HDP: And in this room is one of my favorite watercolors of the dandelions, where it looks like he’s lying down in a field of dandelions. RG: Exactly. In the middle of the night, at 70 years old, with his head on the ground, looking at the moon through dandelions. That’s the way to go.

Yes indeed Charles, you and my father, but yours would have been more restful!

The next painting .. a start

Meanwhile back at the bee house here, I am drawing a Lassioglossum and, happily, Jane at the excellent Urban Extention Blog has a super photo which vindicates my choice of a dandelion of some sort to accompany this smart little bee.

image

Photo Jane Adams here

I have painted the bee and will probably perch him on the leaf of a dandelion or at least one of the related family, but am procrastinating about the flower … all those petals..sigh.
Of course I should say flowers because the dandelion is a composite flower, so made up of many separate tiny flowerlets, each with their own petals and nectar source.. a true bee banqueting table.

Lasioglossum…a start…

lasiog 1

Buzz.. The Bee Exhibition is all set for June, Lumen Centre, London

  By

An Little Oasis of Bee Tranquility.. right in the middle of London!

There are lots of wonderful “Bee” events going on in London this year and of course mine will be one of them ( shameless trumpet blowing and self promotion!)
I am proud to announce “BUZZ …. a Celebration of British Bees and their Flowers” will be held in June from the 1st to the 26th at LUMEN.

bee banner 3

And the venue is just BEAUTIFUL! .. I really couldn’t be more delighted. It‘s the about-to-be-opened gallery of LUMEN the newly opened multi-faith centre in Bloomsbury.

It’s a tucked away, very beautiful space, in my very favourite part of London not far from the British Museum. Leafy squares, book shops, hospitals, Universities, the British Library. Home once to Dickens, Darwin, Vanessa Bell, Virginia Wolfe, and Yeats.  Memories of the old publishing houses, Faber and Faber, and of course Beatrix Potter’s publisher,  Frederick Warne.
I remember seeing their office by chance, years ago. Bloomsbury is wonderful, such history, such learning, such literature. LUMEN CENTRE from an article in e.architect:

..An exquisitely designed new multi-faith centre for worship and contemplation by Theis and Khan Architects
Lumen Centre Lumen Centre London Lumen Centre multi-faith centre
Lumen URC and Community Centre Photos : Nick Kane

Created within the shell of an existing 1960s United Reformed church, lumen will be used regularly for Christian services as well as offering an open invitation to people of all faiths to use the spaces. The site has a rich history. The 1960s church replaced an older church, which was bombed during the Second World War, and backs on to an ancient burial ground for the people of Bloomsbury, now called St. George’s Gardens.
The new sacred space, known as the Shaft of Light is central to the design. A large-scale intervention, rendered in white, is a spectacular conical, shell-like space, which reaches through the full 11-metre height of the building to a single roof-light. The Shaft of Light offers people from any faith or belief a secluded area for worship or for private gatherings. The quality of the light inside the space subtly changes, depending on the weather and time of year, adding to the sense of peace and separation from the bustle of the outside world.
In addition, a tranquil garden at the rear of the building  offers a contemporary interpretation of a cloister, with slender brushed stainless steel columns supporting an arcade around a central courtyard planted with herbs and silver birch trees. The cloister will be open for people to enjoy a quiet moment of reflection or simply stop for a lunchtime sandwich.
Commissioned by the United Reformed Church, lumen has continued the ancient tradition of commissioning artists and craftspeople. Working with Modus Operandi art consultants, the church has commissioned two artists to create new three dimensional art works, which are carefully integrated within the building.
Internationally acclaimed artist Alison Wilding has created a trio of artworks: a new font, a drinking fountain and a garden fountain,a shallow bronze dish with the inscription “A spring of water, welling up to eternal life” (John 4:14). The strong architectural form of the Shaft of Light, designed by Theis and Khan Architects is the key point of reference for both the drinking fountain and font.
Lumen Centre London multi-faith centre London multi-faith centre Lumen Centre interior
Lumen URC and Community Centre Photos : Nick Kane

The north window on the street front, features a spiralling, geometric sculptural screen, entitled North Elevation, by rising artist Rona Smith. Made of bronze, the sculpture is suspended within the alcove of the window, and arcs gently into the main space. The design evokes the traditional imagery of many religions, including Christian, Islamic, Hindu and Buddhist. The artwork explores how geometry unites diverse systems of symbolism and representation and reflects lumen’s ethos of inclusive worship for people of all faiths.
The art works which have been commissioned aim to signify universal values, yet each are open to the interpretation of the individual viewer. We hope that they will encourage a sense of contemplation, and a further means of engagement with the centre, bringing together people of diverse beliefs and backgrounds.
Maggie Hindley, (former) minister Minister, lumen comments: “What impressed me about our architects and artists was that they listened, and asked questions, and brainstormed with us and really got to understand our vision before coming up with any proposals; and then they listened some more as the plans evolved. So we got a physical expression of our own goals, but more beautifully and imaginatively than we could have dreamed of.”

Read the whole article here.. although I have not left much out! Also read all about LUMEN, their history and wonderful facilities on their website here. I will be telling you more as the weeks go by.

Browse, Read and Relax The gallery will be sharing a space in part with the newly opened cafe, which we are hoping will be serving honey cake to have with a cup of tea… and maybe other honey themed foods! ..more on that to come…

Gallery

part of lumen cafe and gallery. And while you are having a refreshing snack you can do some reading as well!

I am delighted to say we are getting support so far from:

Buglife.org.uk “the only organisation in Europe devoted to the conservation of all invertebrates,  …passionately committed to saving Britain’s rarest little animals”.  


The Herb Society who are having a “BEE AWARE” year and whose conference this year is all about bees.

The Bumblebee Conservation Trust two of whose bees, the Shrill Carder and the Great Yellow I will be painting  for the exhibition.
They will all  be providing  literature on bees, herbs, flowers and gardening  for bees….

And  Brigit from the wonderful “The Big Green Idea” the charity dedicated to showing people how sustainable living can be easy, healthy, inexpensive and fun, will hopefully be having an input too. ….all this and I have only just started asking, so lots more info to come and it will be on the blog and even, maybe, on Twitter..

More Megachile..The Lovely Leafcutter Bee again.

  By

I have written before about these delightful bees in my post  “The Leafcutter Bee: Can  Opener of the Bee World” so no need to repeat myself, and I don’t have much time either.

I have made a rather slow start to this next lot of bees.
But you can, and should, go and watch two wonderful short films by the BBC Natural History Unit of these amazing bees chewing round holes in rose leaves and transporting the huge pieces back to their nests where they form them into leafy cocoons for their little ones.The speed is quite astonishing.
The films, complete with cooing wood pigeon soundtrack, are on the excellent site Arkive  http://www.arkive.org/megachile-leaf-cutter-bee/megachile-centuncularis/video-09.html.

Leafcutter bees don’t rely only on rose leaves but use also birch, ash, beech and many other leaves. (I have read that the serrated edge is significant but am not sure about it, but I can see how it might give them a good starting point).

Megachile concinna in Jamaica uses bougainvillea bracts and in the USA Megachile umatillensis uses evening primrose petals, how pretty!

There are several species in the UK but the most commonly seen are, Megachile centuncularis (the one I am painting), and Megachile willughbiella.

The Slow Megachile Painting Slow decisions… Day one… Tuesday

This particular painting has taken me an agonisingly long time.. mainly because I kept changing my mind. Sometimes I know exactly what I want to do, but now I have to consider the paintings as a set and make sure I get a variety of poses and compositions etc. My very first thumbnails done back in Feb were a good guide but I have already altered one or two.

image

First British Bee Thumbnails

I knew I wanted to include the rose leaves with the cut out circles because Megachile centuncularis is also known as the “rose leaf cutter bee” due to her partiality to roses.
So I made more thumbnails and initially chose to work on one with the bee flying away from the rose, mainly because I really wanted a more front face view.  But, if she were flying away from the leaves, she should really be carrying a piece of leaf.

thumbnails    

I pondered all this, spent half a day going down this route and then I decided against it. The bees carry the leaves clasped between their jaws and held with their legs which does to be honest, look rather strange, especially if this is your first encounter with a leafcutter bee.

So I changed the view to her flying towards the rose in eager anticipation of a bit of leaf chewing…I had tried the wings in different positions too but liked the anticipation of the forward position, they are almost like welcoming open arms.

   

I am a bit sad to lose the engaging front view eye contact .. but it makes more sense.  Also,  as I did with the Leu Gardens exhibition I will be having explanatory notes to accompany the work, so I think I will include a drawing of her carrying the leaf there. But it has taken me a day to get this far.

Slow painting… Day two… Wednesday …

At the side of the board is one of my boxes of bees with a little leafcutter under the magnifying glass. It’s a really pretty bee with such personality. Like all of them they take a full day to draw out and paint. So much work for something so small!

desk and megachile      

Slow drawing…. Day three…  Thursday

I really thought today was going to be easy because all I have to do is draw the rose.. I went and found some rose leaves nearby, looked at my Leu photos for a nice single rose and then just couldn’t decide how to  arrange them together.

I tried what seemed like a million different variations of flower angles and leaf arrangements.. these are just two which I was quite happy with, Up a bit…. down a bit …

   

But  I eventually realised that I was uneasy with the scale.. so enlarged the rose a bit and then felt a lot happier but its now 1.30pm. sigh ..

My biggest problem at this stage is trying to keep everything clean.
With graphite pencils you do have to keep washing your hands and I try to remember  to work with paper under my hand.  Hazards are everywhere and cups of tea are usually balanced precariously next to me!

However it’s almost finished, perhaps I’ll add a couple more leaves at the bottom but it’s 5.30..enough for today or rather for the last 3 days!  I am glad I turned the flower head up, its more optimistic and less watchful on the part of the flower.

While she is turning her head to the sky the little bee can come and help herself to some more leaf curls. Hmm… that smacks a bit of whimsy doesn’t it,  a word I dislike intensely… blame it on hours of solitary confinement:

Little Miss Leafcutter off for some Leafcurls  🙂

leafcutter bee bg

Watercolour and graphite on Arches HP  approx 8 x 8 inches

Shakespeare, Dulac, Rackham, Beatrix Potter and Babbitty Bees

  By

This is a self-indulgent, heady combination of people I love! Beautiful words and images arising from sensitive, accurate observations and appreciation of the natural world.  Shakespeare and Beatrix Potter, creators of magical worlds and Edmund Dulac and Arthur Rackham, the very best of fairy illustrators.

Shakespeare’s bees I am an unashamed fan of both “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and “The Tempest”. During my blog break, in between trying to organise things for the exhibition I went back to look at these two wonderful plays and their mention of bees.

When I was a child I was fascinated by my grandmother’s tiny house which was full of books. There were many small cheap editions of the classics which included the easy reader version of  Lamb’s Tales of Shakespeare where I first encountered these magical fairie worlds.

There are many references to bees in Shakespeare but probably the most famous is Ariel’s song from the Tempest Act Five, Scene 1

“Ariel:          Where the bee sucks, there suck I,
in a cowslip’s bell I lie;
There I couch, when owls do cry.
On a bat’s back I do fly
after summer merrily, merrily shall I live now,
under the blossom that hangs on the bough.
Shall I live now “

Edmund Dulac’s illustration of Ariel living his freedom is sublime,  in the quality of the botanical observation and the spirit of the words and of course the virtuoso handling of watercolour.

Dulac ariel

In “A Midsummer Nights Dream”  Titania requests that the fairies look after her new love the Donkey headed Bottom,

“Be kind and courteous to this gentleman;
Hop in his walks and gambol in his eyes;
Feed him with apricocks and dewberries,
With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries;
The honey-bags steal from the humble-bees,
And for night-tapers crop their waxen thighs
And light them at the fiery glow-worm’s eyes,”

Later in ACT IV, Scene 1 Bottom revels in his new status and requests of Cobweb:

“Mounsieur Cobweb, good mounsieur, get you your
weapons in your hand, and kill me a red-hipped
humble-bee on the top of a thistle; and, good
mounsieur, bring me the honey-bag.”

Here is the incomparable Arthur Rackham’s illustration for the passage:

The “red hipped Humble Bee” in question which Shakespeare refers to might well be Bombus lapidarius as he refers in other plays to the “red tailed Humble Bee”.

Rackham’s interpretation shows a white tail, which is sometimes the case with both lapidarius and lucorum but probably not to that extent. However I am not one of the joyless ones who like to niggle, I just revel in the gorgeous pen drawing of the thistle.
There was an understanding in Shakespeare’s time that bees collected both wax and honey from flowers but he would know that bumble bees carry honey in a separate honey stomach, more than the honey bee due to their size.

In fact on a rather gruesome note, Gilbert White in Letter XXVII To The Honourable Daines Barrington December 12, 1775, mentions a simple boy who would eat bees for their honey.
It’s a very curious passage written in a matter of fact way but not without some sympathy for the boy’s condition. You can read more here in Project Gutenberg Etext of The Natural History of Selborne.

Beatrix Potter. Wizz, zizz and Babbitty

But away from all that to the charm and beauty of Beatrix Potter Anyone who knows anything about her is already aware that she was a very fine natural history observer and painter as well as the writer and illustrator of her wonderful books.
Here is a set of drawings including some bees. see the beautiful big aforementioned Bombus lapidarius on the left.

images_k24

You can see this and more of her beautiful work at the V and A’s site here in an article about her entitled “Beauty in the Detail”

“She used a fine, dry brush to define meticulously and minutely the anatomy of even the most delicate specimens. Fascination with scientific accuracy underpins Potter’s artistic technique, a bee, beetle, butterfly, ladybird and spider enjoy supporting roles in The Tale of Mrs Tittlemouse. Potter observed them, and her ‘ most terribly tidy particular little mouse’ with astonishing attention to detail.”

And here, indeed is the wonderful Mrs Babbitty Bumble from the Tale of Mrs Tittlemouse.
Poor Mrs Tittlemouse who only wants a neat and tidy house is beset by bugs..and the ultimate is finding the mossy nest of bumblebees in her larder.

“ I am not in the habit of letting lodgings, this is an intrusion”

she says and enlists the help of the muddy footed toad Mr. Jackson who will do anything for a little dish of honey!

bb1      bb2

bb3      bb4

Mr Jackson it appears eats one of the other unwelcome guest hiding in the plate rack, ( a woodlouse I think ) but draws the line at the Bumble bee. About to take a bite he puts her down “I do not like bumble bees, they are all over bristles”

bb 5

But he does help  Mrs Tittlemouse  to restore order and is rewarded with acorn cups of honey.. and all is well.. but I think the bumblebees had to find another home!

You can read the spreads yourself at Childrensbooksonline , but these, above, are taken from on old book belonging to Chris.

We only have a few things in the apartment here and Chris travels very light, but there are 3 Beatrix Potter books in the book case, they were his as a child and read by his children too.

There is nothing nicer than an old book passed down from generation to generation is there? I appreciate a fine pristine first edition  but I do love old books, love to see their previous owners names, love the grubby thumbed pages of much loved and well used favourite volume.

I recently picked up an old rather tatty volume of Sladens “Humble bee” which I had ordered from the local library. The librarian apologised for the condition it was in.. “But” I said, “it’s the contents .. it’s all about the contents .. isn’t it?”
It’s exactly how I feel about people too..

A final thought for all you beekeepers this coming year, old and new.. May your “singing masons be busy building roofs of gold”  Shakespeare’s Henry V, Act 1 Scene 2.

Anthophora plumipes. More Hairy Footing in the Spring Garden.

  By

I am revisiting the delightful Hairy Footed Flower Bee, Anthophora plumipes which I drew before back in November here. I wrote quite a bit about these funny little bees then and so won’t repeat myself, but here from the Natural History Museum identification sheet is a nice short description

“Large, long-tongued species resembling a small bumblebee; body length 14-17 mm. Female has body hair entirely black, outer surface of hind leg with golden hairs; body hair of male mainly a rich brown (face bright yellow). Common in gardens where it mainly visits deep-throated flowers. Cell walls consist of a conglomeration of fine particles of soil or mortar which are probably bound together by a secretion from an abdominal gland. This bee flies, with a shrill hum, from mid March to the end of May, rarely June. It is distributed throughout much of England and Wales (especially in the south); absent Scotland and Ireland.”

My real dilemma was which one to draw, the male or the female. I drew the male before because he is the one with the bizarre and wonderful feathery feet, lovely yellow markings on the face and a Roman nose. Below is a photo of the male, you can see the feathers on his front legs.

shutterstock_24437626

Male Anthophora plumipes , Photo Cosmin Manci from Shutterstock.com

The female could not be more different, they are mostly black and shaped like a little bomb. But they are really super sweet, whizzing around with their bright, ginger coloured legs.
They are early bees and so can be seen foraging on primroses, and a absolute favourite spring flower of mine, cowslips.

Here is a great photo from Brian Stones blog, “The Natural Stone”. In the post “Plenty in the Garden” from April 2005 a little female Anthophora is making, just as you would expect, a beeline, for the cowslips. This post also has two lovely frogs.. I do hope one day I get to paint some frogs .. Brian’s blog is full of wonderful photos and observations, I did particularly like the delightful bee flies here.

bee_30apr05_420

The Anthophora bees also like lungworts,or pulmonarias which have the same long tubular shaped flowers as the cowslips, whose deeply hidden nectar is easy for these long tongued species to access.

shutterstock_13177825

Beautiful pink and violet Pulmonaria, photo from “Sad” at Shutterstock here

If you would like to attract these super bees to your garden do go and read Blackbird’s post Flower Bee Garden.. April 2009 from her excellent Bugblog which I quoted from on the last post.

You will find a list of flowers that will have Hairy Footed Flower bees frolicking in your garden. What could be nicer?

 

The Painting

I just couldn’t decide between the wonderful spotted leaves of the lungworts or my favourite cowslips.

antho sketch

I left it, until I had no more time to decide and went for the cowslip flowers. The spotted leaves might just have been a bit too busy and distracting…. but I might just have to paint that little male bee again, perhaps displaying those lovely hairy feet on a nice spotted Pulmonaria leaf.

anthph sketch

_____________________________________________________

Anthophora plumipes, The Female Hairy Footed Flower Bee and Cowslip.

 

I know the scientists may shrink in horror at the description, but this bee is just “too cute” for words!!
Watercolour and Pencil on Arches HP .. size approx 7×7 inches.

The Wool Carder Bee and a little from Gilbert White.

  By

I was trying to adopt a “less is more” approach for this post as I had written about the Anthidium, or Wool Carder bees when I painted Anna’s Bee back in December and included some of Fabre’s lovely writing about what he called “The Cotton Bee”.

But there is so much to know about these really attractive rather wasp-like little bees. So, I can do no better really than to send you over to biologist Blackbirds’s excellent Bug Blog, to read the posts tagged with Anthidium manicatum here.

There are 4 excellent posts with some wonderful photographs and observations of behaviour and links. Here are just two photos: the male with his lovely yellow face and the shy little female.

Male feeding     female A manicatum

Photos by Blackbird from Bug Blog.

This is a short quote from the post entitled “ Wool Carder Bee Watching 2: the Female”

“The first time I came across Anthidium manicatum, the Wool-Carder Bee was after hearing it, not the usual humming noise bees make when flying, but that produced by a female’s jaws cutting the hairs of a plant I had recently planted in the garden, Lamb’s Ears (Stachys byzantina). Since then, this has been a plant that has not been missing from the garden, just because it is a sure way of attracting Wool-Carder bees.”

If you are interested in these bees and others there are many other wonderful posts in the blog. The Anthidium family have many fascinating variations on the black and yellow patterning.  There is a very good page showing different types on the French “World of Insects” site, compiled by Alain Ramel here.

Gilbert White and Selborne

It’s inevitable that we who like bees will find the same references from the great Natural History writers or a nicer way of putting perhaps the ‘natural philosophers’.
Blackbird has also included Fabre in the anthidium posts and this passage from Gilbert White’s summer observation from “The Natural History of Selborne” which, on a gloomy cold rainy day here made me smile!  His entry is from July 11th 1772.

“Drought has continued five weeks this day.  Watered the rasp and annuals well. There is a sort of wild bee frequenting the garden-campion for the sake of its tomentum, which probably it turns to some purpose in the business of nidification.  It is very pleasant to see with what address it strips off the pubes, running from the top to the bottom of a branch, & shaving it bare with all the dexterity of a hoop-shaver. When it has got a vast bundle, almost as large as itself, it flies away, holding it secure between its chin and its forelegs.”

But I came across this passage from a different  source .. from the lovely annotated site “The Natural History of Selborne,  Journals of Gilbert White” compiled by animator Sydney Padua. You can read entries by month and date which show Gilbert White’s simple observations from different years, here are 2 entries for tomorrow, the last day of February.

  • “1769: February 28, 1769 – Raven sits.
  • 1768: February 28, 1768 – Wet continues still: has lasted three weeks this day. Pinched off the tops of the cucumber plants, which have several joins.”

Reading back over passages from this wonderful book, which our family, as many others, has never been without, I had forgotten..( how could I!) about Timothy the Tortoise, and had a flash of memory about our much loved childhood tortoises.
The site is full of links to Gilbert White, the Journals, Selborne  etc. and one of my favourite quotes is .. in response to people writing to her and asking if their version of the book is valuable (there are thousands)..

“The best reply was my husband’s, to an email that read in its entirety, “I have a copy of “The Natural History of Selborne is it worth anything” — “If you read it, yes.”

Sydney, by the way is one of those excellent animators I was talking about yesterday whose drawing skills are so very good. See her animation site and wonderful sketches here.

The Painting

I had a small dilemma. I want to paint the male bee as his markings are slightly more showy and wanted to show that rather intimidating spiked tail,  but I also wanted to include the wooly plant Stachys byzantina (Lambs Ears) which the bees use to make their nests.

This could be thought of as misleading because it is the female who makes the nests but I was encouraged to read that the males also feed on Stachys flowers, and, of course, hang around the plant too in search of a mate.
I initially thought about including a bigger leaf with a tiny drawing of the female carding.. but common sense prevailed. I was able to use Anna’s specimen again too, but had a slight accident and lost half of it on the floor..after an hour searching with a torch I did retrieve it. Half a bee is not easy to find on a patterned carpet.

But anyway, here is the male heading hopefully  over to the Lamb’s Ears!

anthidium sketch sm woolcarder sketch small

______________________________________________________

The Wool Carder bee, Anthidium manicatum and Wooly Lamb’s Ear Stachys byzantina

woolcarder bee sm

Watercolour and pencil on Arches HP. 7’” square approx.

Slow Down and Look…A Week of Celebrating Slowness..

  By

My first week of dipping my toe in the manic buzzing twittering world that is social networking has been very mixed. I have found some good information and some awful dross.
I am wondering if Twitter is really just a big community of snippet kleptomaniacs? Do they actually read what they retweet or just skim the headlines?
Since starting to research bees, a good six months go now, I have wasted hours being directed to countless sites that have very slight “information”, mostly copied from other sites, often without attribution and often completely and utterly wrong.

I don’t want to rant or be a luddite but I really wish more people would just slow down and try to process the information before “publishing” it as fact.  I am as guilty, sometimes but I do try to be accurate.

So this week I am slowing down, and am taking a step back and applauding the slow, the careful, the quiet and the considered. Hmmmm… after only a week this perhaps does not auger well for my new pushy self-promoting self does it? 🙂

The Charm of Just One Square Metre

One person who knows about taking his time is ecologist Dr  Patrick Roper who for the last six years has been studying just one square metre of land in his garden and recording some of his findings on his blog. He says, of his wonderful  project:

There is considerable fascination in the surprising variety of life in such a small area. If it were larger it would be regarded as a favoured place as several legally protected and nationally scarce species have been recorded. It also raises the question of how well we know anywhere and is a living demonstration of nature’s constant dynamic of one habitat changing to another and species coming and going, flourishing and declining.

In his recent post “Tussocking” Patrick has taken a lump of grass to see what he can find there after a hard winter.

“This excision leaves a hole of course, but this might fill up with interesting things in due time.  Or you may even find something in it – I found a mauve plastic clothes peg, a survivor from the days when a washing line passed over the area.”

Metre tussock 017_thumb[1]

When I saw this I could not help making a comparison with Durer’s  “The Large Turf” (or as we more affectionately call it “The Great Sod” ). Reading about Patrick’s finds…

“..two garlic snails Oxychilius alliarius; several Entomobrya nivalis springtails; the bark louse, Lepinotus iniquilinus; two rove beetles, Stenus flavipes and Tachyporus chrysomelinus; two herb hammock spiders, Neriene clathrata;and a woodlouse, Trichoniscus pusillus..”

….I found myself wondering what had been creeping in and out of the daisies, yarrow, plantains, dandelions, and pimpernels that Durer so carefully and sensitively painted.

Duerer_the_large_turf

In a delightful short BBC feature from “Springwatch” a couple of years ago here, you can see Dr Roper in his Square Metre.. (do have a look and see the sword swallowing grasshopper).

He imagines that he may, one day, be found as a petrified remain, transfixed and crouching by the edge of his small world. That, I guess, is what slowing down can do.  In this tiny place you can share the comings and goings over the “Great Plantain Desert”, follow an ant along “Troy Track”, ponder “The Waste”, catch up with what might be occurring down in “Volepasture” or who is hanging out on “Butterfly Rock” as was this crane fly, from A Spring Cranefly – Dicranomyia chorea  in 2007.

image

And Patrick must have the smallest pond in England.

There are many other delights to be found in his various blogs. I was very pleased to find him.. not least because my languishing PHD project parallels so much that he has to say. Thank you Patrick!

I feel it is time to shake the dust off the files and have another look. This is not a quick fix read, you have take your time and be willing to get down to ant level and consider the small things in life, to whom that one Square Metre is plant city.

Your rewards will be manifold if you do.  Just don’t tell me you haven’t got time to slow down and look!.. just don’t tell me that.  Stop talking, twittering, emailing, blogging, messaging, texting, slow down and just look.
I really did just that today, just for half an hour,  and saw a kingfisher fishing.