Deborah´s bees – Page 2 – Pencil and Leaf

The Hairy Footed Flower Bee.. yes really..

By Val Littlewood November 25, 2009 January 25, 2020 Uncategorized

If ever a bee belonged in the world of the fairies this is it. The amazing Hairy Footed Flower Bee. I have painted the male, with its plumed feathery feet, its Roman nose and its equally endearing Latin name, Anthophora plumipes.

I had not really given much thought to bees’ feet before I started this project but they are wonderful things. See the plumes on the second leg..

photo by Jeffdelonge for Wikipedia here

Anthophora is another large bee genus with over 450 species worldwide. They vary enormously. Some are known as digger or mason bees and make wonderful elaborate homes with mud.
This particular species is an early April bee and particularly long tongued, so able to make the most of tubular flowers such as the spring-flowering Lungwort, Pulmonaria, Comfrey, Symphytum, Cowslips, and the dead nettle family Lamium.

Adrian Knowles, Hymenoptera Recorder for the Suffolk Nature Society has this to say:

“At about 13mm long they are a little smaller than most bumblebees and they fly with very quick wings in a swift and darting flight, frequently hovering in front of flowers and so have a rather different “jizz” to their larger relatives. They are perhaps more reminiscent of rotund hairy hoverflies in their behaviour.
They nest in tunnels excavated in steep, dry soil banks and .occasionally within the crumbling mortar of old masonry, as do several other solitary bees.
Amazingly, they emerge from their pupae in late summer but remain in their sealed nest cells until the following spring – about 6 months spent as an adult just standing still!
The females are all black, with yellow/orange hairs on her hind legs (you may need to look carefully to avoid confusion with bees bearing yellow pollen on their hind legs).
The males are strikingly different, with dark orange/brown hairs towards the front of their bodies, giving way to black hairs anteriorly. “ ………not forgetting those hairy feet!

from Suffolk’ s Box Valley (UK) Nature Website here which will also take you to some interesting books on Suffolk’s Natural History.

The reason for the extravagant hairiness is, of course all to do courtship.
If you are a female Hairy Footed Flower Bee (but without the hairy feet as the females don’t have them), I guess you will appreciate the tender ministrations of your beau as he wafts his hairy feet over your antennae, transferring his own brand of irresistible aftershave as he does.
It’s not quite my idea of romance, but then I am not a bee …yet. Gordon Ramel of the excellent Gordon’s Solitary Bee Pages has another theory …
As the females are notoriously skittish, it is possible that the male covers his mate’s eyes with those hairy feet to calm her down, (or to knock her out with that aftershave)
He tells us more about this game little bee

“The males are territorial and tend to guard a home range which contains either, the sorts of flowers the females like to visit, or a site suitable for nesting.
The male patrols around his home range spending time at each patch of flowers and or nest site chasing off intruders. He is very serious about this and defends his chosen resources from all comers whether they are a competing male bee or not.
To drive intruders away from his range he accelerates straight at them very quickly and rams them with his head, he can knock out insects much larger than himself this way”

You will also find links to some very good illustrations on this page, and Gordon’s Earthlife site is fun and informative and about much more than just bees.

Here is a photo of the lovely black female Hairy Footed Flower Bee with her orange coloured back legs..

The gorgeous female HFFB by rybaros from a Polish entomological site which has excellent insect photos here

This particular species Anthophora plumipes, is most common in the Europe but according to the excellent Discover Life site, after introduction in Maryland they can now be found throughout the Washington DC region.

Look out for them if you live in this area. I spent far too long researching and reading about these bees. Sometimes it takes a long time to collect even a small amount of accurate information. I am going to put a list of useful bee sites on the sidebar soon.

However deciding how to draw this bee was not too difficult. Of course I had to include the feet, that Roman nose and it does have lovely big eyes. I am also getting a little more familiar with bee anatomy so I made a couple of quick sketches just to get the pose right and then got on with the painting.

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Bee No 9: The Hairy Footed Flower Bee, Anthophora plumipes

The Tawny Mining Bee: Andrena fulva

By Val Littlewood November 23, 2009 January 25, 2020 Uncategorized

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

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. “

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.

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

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

Bee No7: The Beautiful Violet Carpenter Bee. Xylocopa violacea

By Val Littlewood November 20, 2009 January 25, 2020 Uncategorized

This is the companion to Bee 6: the Southern Carpenter Bee, Xylocopa micans.

The Violet Carpenter Bee is one of the biggest bees in Europe and has beautiful blue/violet coloured wings and a big shiny black body. It just had to be included in the set.

The facts: CLASS: Insecta
ORDER: Hymenoptera, Bees, wasps, ants and sawflies.
SUPERFAMILY: Apoidea. Bees and some wasps.
FAMILY: Apidae. Bees.
GENUS: Xylocopa. Large Carpenter Bees
SPECIES: Xylocopa violacea

This bee is common to the Mediterranean and Central Europe and now has been spotted occasionally overwintering in the UK. It has the same bad wood chewing habits as the other Carpenter Bees.
There is another species of furry tan Carpenter Bee the Xylocopa varipucta which is on my list to paint and has been described as like a small flying teddy bear and I may get round to it later. .. so many bees so little time!

Bad news for Bees of Baldwin Park
Yesterday, the tidiness police came round to Lake Baldwin and decreed the chopping down of untidy weeds.
We are allowed an environmentally protected zone as long as it is neat.
A mowing man arrived and the whole of the lovely messy tangle of flowers, grasses and reeds has been razed to stalks and stubble. We had this….

Now this, even this last clump of horsemint in the foreground was gone by lunchtime.

Gone are the Spotted Horsements, the Indian Blanket, the wild Blue and Golden Asters, the Yellow Tickseed, the grassy Bottle Brush, the Morning Glories, the Dog Fennel, the brilliant Scarlet Tassel Flower, the delicate purple headed Hairawn Muhly, the silvery Bushy Bluestem, the small Rattle Box shrubs, the Lopsided Indiangrass whose beautiful feathery tops glistened in the morning sun, the odd black dots of the Rayless Flowers, and various pretty Red Pea flowers, and that is to name just the few that I can identify … but we are tidy now.

Gone too are the singing frogs, the chirruping crickets, the sand wasps, the paper wasps, the clicking dragonflies, the beetles, the snakes, the lizards and a million bugs and flies and worst of all, my bees.

All is silent, still and a bit sad.

Of course it will all be back in due course but it seems a shame.

But back to the Carpenter Bee and a simple sketch to just get the proportions right.

and a colour sketch

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Bee No 7: The Violet Carpenter Bee, Xylocopa violacea

Who’s got Beautiful Big Green Eyes then? Bee no 6.

By Val Littlewood November 18, 2009 January 25, 2020 Uncategorized

I was going to paint the regular Carpenter Bee the one I see most of here but yesterday on the way home, on a straggly patch of horsemint, I noticed one that seemed to have slightly more gingery hair and a brighter blue sheen to its body, then I saw its eyes, its beautiful pale green/blue eyes.
Wow…this is the male of Xylocopa micans, the Southern Carpenter Bee.

My only two half decent photos.. there is always something in the way !!

I read these are common in Florida so I probably just hadn’t noticed the subtle colour differences before.

The facts:

CLASS: Insecta
ORDER: Hymenoptera, Bees, wasps, ants and sawflies.
SUPERFAMILY: Apoidea. Bees and some wasps.
FAMILY: Apidae. Bees.
GENUS: Xylocopa. Large Carpenter Bees
SPECIES: Xylocopa micans

The point of male carpenters having such huge eyes seems to be to help them spot females and also to fly in low light conditions.

PS. I really do sympathise with those whose houses have been drilled and perforated by these nice bees. It must be very frustrating. T
rying to find an humane suggestion, it seems they don’t care for pressure-treated or painted wood.
You can stuff the holes with wire wool which even they find a challenge and if you are a very noisy family they will move out.
They don’t like noise.
That’s probably why we didn’t see any in Spain. ..and just in case you thought I was joking yesterday about them being docile….

I had planned a quite different pose for the Carpenter Bee but the eyes have it, so a quick drawing to sort the pose out.

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Bee No 6:The Southern Carpenter Bee Xylocpa micans

The Gentle Giant of the Bee World, The Carpenter Bee

By Val Littlewood November 17, 2009 January 25, 2020 Uncategorized

So I have a new love, he is big, black and hairy.
Yes, today I had a real “Ahhh” moment with a Carpenter Bee. On a beautiful sunny morning at Leu the Carpenter Bees were busy,very busy, all over this red flower (which I think is Egyptian Star Cluster, Pentas lanceolata).

The flowers are slight, the bees are heavy, so seeing one struggling to keep its feet, holding out a steadying finger seemed only natural. I thought it would fly away at such an intrusion but this lovely bee was happy to clamber aboard this firmer platform and continue collecting nectar, 4 feet resting on me and 2 on the flower.

They are so busy nectar gathering that they scarcely notice you. I should also add that they do not sting. You see the problem, big bee, small flower.

and three more of these big chaps, trundling across the flower heads.

My bee photos are more luck than anything else. I take a lot, then it’s rather like those “find the hidden animals in the tree” outline drawings in kids puzzle books.. sometimes there is a bee in them and sometimes there is nothing.

This gorgeous handsome bee is Xylocopa virginica, the Common Eastern Carpenter Bee.
It’s the biggest bee in the USA and can be up to a sizeable one inch long.
This one is the all black female taken again at Leu but last week.

Professor Stephen Buchmann writes about bees.
Chris bought me his “Letters from the Hive” and I have found it hard to drag myself away.
Here is a snippet from his very nice article about Carpenter Bees, for the US Forestry Commission’s “Pollinator of the Month” series here.

“These gentle giants get their name from their life history habits of excavating precisely rounded galleries inside wood. Using their broad, strong mandibles (jaws), they chew into dead but non-decayed limbs or trunks of standing dead trees.
Some species, like the eastern Xylocopa virginica, occasionally take up residence in fence posts or structural timbers, especially redwood, and become a minor nuisance.
Inside their rounded branched galleries, they form pollen/nectar loaves upon which they lay their giant eggs (up to 15 mm long). The female forms partitions between each egg cell by mixing sawdust and her saliva together.
These partition walls are very similar to particle board!”

Diagram from”animals how stuff works . here and a photo of their extraordinarily accomplished woodwork

Photo Stephen Buchmann Also accompanying the article is Prof Buchmann’s wonderful photo, demonstrating the huge difference in sizes between the bee species

The smallest and the largest: a Perdita minima on a female carpenter bee’s head. Photo by Stephen Buchmann.

Anna, from Anna’s Bee World, who also very kindly helped me identify my Blue Wasp has this photo on her blog and explains how it was achieved.

This photo was taken by one of my graduate advisors, Stephen Buchmann, who is a renowned bee expert. He has this amazing amazing microscope, and an artful eye.
These two bees are real, but obviously dead. He took a Carpenter bee, which are known as some of the largest bees (gentle giants) and he took the smallest bee in the world (Perdita minima) and glued the small bee onto the antennae of the carpenter bee. He thought it would bee (sorry, had to throw that in) cool to show people the size difference between the largest bee and smallest bee.

It’s the photo you would see in the bee version of the Guinness World Records.
There is a scale bar at the bottom of the photo, but I am not sure what the scale is (1mm?). I couldn’t find that. I assume it is 1mm since Perdita minima usually measures about 2mm in size (0.078 inches).

See Anna’s Bee World here. Two millimeters for the tiny Perdita minima!!!.

I will not be attempting to paint that one. Its rather a shame to see how many sites are dedicated to the eradication of this “nuisance” bee. It seems they don’t actually do too much harm and are so very beautiful and although quite territorial they are not really aggressive (the male bees cannot sting).

I did read that if you want to “move” a Carpenter Bee, you throw a small pebble just past him. He will think it is another bee and go chasing after it. He may not be the sharpest bee in the box then, but his looks are enough to fall in love with.

There are certainly quite a few round here and, having a subversive streak myself, I rather like the idea of them infiltrating the neat timber porches and verandahs of Baldwin Park and setting up some little families there. Their chewing can apparently be heard several feet away. 🙂

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A preliminary sketch: What distinguishes them from Bumble Bees is their glossy hairless abdomen .. and their size!

Bee No 5: The Stripy Halictid Sweat Bee, Agapostemon splendens

By Val Littlewood November 15, 2009 January 25, 2020 Uncategorized

The delightful and inquisitive little sweat bee, from the family Halictidae.
Known as sweat bees because some of them have shown an interest in the saltiness of human sweat, more usually the dark species than this green and striped one.

There are more than 1000 types of sweat bees and they come in black, brown, red or green/blue, metallic and striped.

I use the excellent Bugguide.net for much of my information.
The facts CLASS: Insecta
ORDER: Hymenoptera, Bees, wasps, ants and sawflies.
SUPERFAMILY: Apoidea. Bees and some wasps.
FAMILY: Halictidae (Sweat Bees)
GENUS: Agapostemon (Metallic Green Bees)
SPECIES: Agapostemon splendens

Agapostemon sweat bees are regarded as solitary bees.

Females dig burrows deep into the ground and fashion small cells which they supply with provisions of pollen and nectar. In each cell she lays an egg. Each burrow will contain several cells.
Some sweat bees though do seem to share nesting sites and so are thought to be in between the true solitary bees and the very social honey bees.
The correct term is “eusocial”.
Communal nesting is advantageous as while some bees are away looking for food the others can be defending the nest site.

The Halictid family is ancient and species have been found in amber dating back over 40 million years.

This little fossil Halictus petrefactus, from Spain, is approx 20 million years old, (from the American Museum of Natural History publication here.)

It is still a matter of debate as to when exactly bees evolved and which came first, bees or flowers.

Discoveries of bee nests in logs of the Petrified Forest in Arizona point to bees being in existence as far back as 220 million years ago, before the arrival of flowering plants, which upsets the theory that flowering plants and bees evolved together.

If so what did the bees live on ? The bee nests indicate that the species was very similar to the Halictids.

Read more about this fascinating topic in the New York Times article from 1995 here.

I haven’t yet found any more recent information.

My model for this small study was very much alive and well.
They are inquisitive, quick moving and alert little bees, and completely captivating to watch. I will be back to this bee to make a larger painting soon.

These studies are only 3.5 inches and I am looking forward to exploring this particular bee in more detail, if my eyesight holds out.

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Bee No 5 Agapostemon splendens

A Live Model

By Val Littlewood November 11, 2009 January 25, 2020 Uncategorized

I am frustrated if I can’t see the real thing when I am drawing. That is my preferred reference, a photo of my own is second best and then the last resort is searching through hundreds of reference photos of my subject, drawing it over and over again until I understand how it works and what I am trying to do. It can be a long job.

Bee number 5 is to be the tiny little metallic green sweat bee.

One of the Halictid family. My biggest admission here is that I have never seen them before.. and that is only because I wasn’t looking or rather wasn’t seeing. I also thought they would be bigger. Before I started this project, bees, to me, came in two sizes.. bumble and honey, but these are tiny, and look more like our UK hover flies.

To see them you have to adjust your focus and tell your brain to pick up on tiny things.. once you have done that you will see them (if you live in Florida anyway), literally thousands of them, all over horse mint, the daisies and the roses.

Yesterday I went to Leu Gardens to try to get a decent photo or two and by accident met my friend Robert who was photographing butterflies. I explained my frustration, lack of a decent camera etc etc .
“Well” he said, “what you need to do is catch one and pop it in the fridge for 10 minutes.” This literally chills them out enough for you to photograph them while they warm up.
This morning I went back to the horsemint on the lakeshore and tentatively captured a bee…it wasn’t difficult, they are too busy gathering nectar to notice.

I put a large plastic bag over a large head of mint and cut the stem, then took the bag, mint and bee home.

My model was still quite busy clambering about the mint, so it was not difficult to transfer it in a glass jar and to the fridge. I have to say I was worried about this.

I don’t want to kill anything even for my “art”.

But both the bee and I survived and an hour later I was able to let it go, back to the very same spot. It immediately continued gathering nectar as if nothing had happened.

The photos are not great by professional terms but I am so pleased.

Apart from the photos, I was able to watch the little stripy bee wake up slowly and give itself a good sprucing up which seemed to involve a lot of antennae preening.

I could see the beautiful black markings on its yellow legs and the glittering iridescence of its head and thorax. From what I can see this is Agapostemon splendens. I did take lots of photos, many were out of focus as I am having to use an enlarging ring to get close enough which is something new to me … but here are just a few of the reasonable ones:

Bee in jar with some Horsemint.

Coming out of the jar.

Bee waking up .. see how very small he is

Bee sprucing up, he was using his front leg to wipe his face and antennae

Bee glaring at me …

and straight back to work ….

Bee No 4: The Common Eastern Bumble Bee, Bombus impatiens and some Impatient Bee Waving.

By Val Littlewood November 10, 2009 January 25, 2020 Uncategorized

Since starting this project I have been looking for bees here in Orlando and have watched and photographed quite a few of these little cream and black bees. This is the Common Eastern Bumble Bee, Bombus impatiens. Name? .. well I am not sure, but I have read that it might be because it likes the “impatiens” flower.

However, observing its darting flight and very short flower stops, maybe it’s because of its impatient nature. This is a native American Bumble Bee which seems to be the one most studied and most useful for agriculture in the USA. They are certainly very common here in Orlando.

The facts

CLASS: Insecta
ORDER: Hymenoptera, Bees, wasps, ants and sawflies.
SUPERFAMILY: Apoidea. Bees and some wasps.
FAMILY: Apidae. Bees.
GENUS: Bombus. Bumblebees
SPECIES: Bombus impatiens

This nice clear photo of pinned specimens shows the comparative sizes of the queen to worker to male. from the University of Maine’s Bilberry growing document here.

Size
Queen: 20 to 21mm in length.
Worker: 9 to 17.5mm in length.
Male: 12.5 to 16mm in length..

This is a wide ranging bee, seen across eastern North America from Ontario to Maine and south to Florida. Their value to agriculture above other bumblebees is because they make large colonies of up to 450 workers and are now bred especially for the pollination of farm vegetables.

They are tireless workers and are not put off by cooler or adverse weather conditions as are honey bees. It seems that one factor in the recent decline of bumble bees in general is the loss of wild habitat which is rich in different types of flowers.

These bees need to be able to feed from April to November. My snap taken last week is of the Bombus impatiens on the nearby Spotted Horse Mint which is growing enthusiastically on the weedy strip of land around Lake Baldwin and the path. It is covered with bees, flies and wasps.

Growing more bumble bee friendly flowers can help, so grow these: poppies, mint, tomatoes, nettles, convolvulus, any legumes, saxifrage and asters. There were many many impatiens on the blue Michaelmas daisies at Leu this week.

Alex Wild Photography

I really struggle to get a good bee photograph, I don’t really have the eyesight or the correct macro lenses or a high res camera, so I am in awe of some of the fabulous photos I see on the internet. If you Google “Bombus impatiens” you will inevitably see the photos of Alex Wild. I wrote to Alex to ask his permission to put these on the blog, not only are they charming and wonderful but they demonstrate a nice little bit of bee behaviour.
Taken at the Laboratory colony of B impatiens at the University of Arizona they record an encounter between two bees and show the difference in sizes between worker bees.. not the queen and worker as you might think.

Captioned “ AAaaaaaahhhhh!!!!! A Bee!!!!!” .. this wonderful photo demonstrates what happens when the impatient bee has run right out of its small allocation of patience.
The raising of a middle leg signifies a bee is getting irritated and is showing both alarm and a warning. If I were that little bee I am not sure I would be wanting to annoy my very large companion. I am going to ask Alex what was happening. It’s a good tip to know though, when getting up close and personal with bees.

Another photo from his portfolio is of a nest of little research B impatiens bees at Arizona. The bees are numbered so scientists can track their individual activities.

See more of his really stunning insect photos at Alex Wild Photography here and on his blog at http://myrmecos.wordpress.com/.

He also has some articles on how he achieves his photographs which I really do need to read! But, back to drawing and some initial sketches of the impatient bumble bee.

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Bee No 4: The Common Eastern Bumble Bee, Bombus Impatiens.

The Beautiful but Grumpy, Bombus lapidarius

By Val Littlewood November 5, 2009 January 25, 2020 Uncategorized

Number three of the four Bumble bees is Bombus lapidarius, the (other) Red Tailed Bumble Bee, or the Stone Bumble Bee after its name “lapidarius”. Called this because of its liking for making nests under stones or in stone walls.
The one I have sketched is the female, all black with the beautiful flame red tail. Below is the male with similar colouring, but with a yellow band on the thorax and a tuft of yellow hair on the face.

Photo of Small male Bombus lapidarius by Nigel Jones for BWARS ( Bees Wasps and Ants Recording Society) here.

The facts CLASS: Insecta
ORDER: Hymenoptera, Bees, wasps, ants and sawflies.
SUPERFAMILY: Apoidea. Bees and some wasps.
FAMILY: Apidae. Bees.
GENUS: Bombus. Bumblebees
SPECIES: Bombus lapidarius
Lengths: Queen 20-22mm, Workers 11-16mm, Male 14-16mm.

These beautiful bees are common in Europe, I saw two while I was at home in Lincolnshire in September. They make a slightly later appearance than some other Bumble Bees. and form colonies of up to 200. They are busy active creatures, visiting many different species of flowers but seem to particularly like clover and dead nettle and they apparently like an easy landing, so will also choose daisies, dandelions and thistles.

A Bad Tempered Bee

Bombus Lapidarius has a short fuse. They are known to “buzz” you menacingly if you disturb or threaten them. Bad behaviour, in the old days, was punished with deportation but it was in spite of this grumpy nature, that worthy Victorian, Thomas Belt, advocated these bees be shipped out to New Zealand to help with pollinating clover.
Thomas Belt was an extraordinary man.
This is the Thomas Belt who “discovered” the complicated relationship between the Bulls Horn Acacia and ants. (see my earlier blog entries for info about him and the twiggy home of my beloved, now long gone “Ant” here)

The following from 1897 edition of the wonderfully named “Science Gossip” demonstrates how his early childhood toughened him up for his astonishing life as mining engineer and naturalist..

I know nothing more interesting to a naturalist when he wishes to rest from more serious study than to devote a few hours on a summer’s day to watching the humble bees at work amongst the flowers.
They have been favourites of mine from early childhood, one of my first experiments being the determination of the stinging powers of the three species, and the time they might be kept between the hollow of the two hands before they got sufficiently angry to sting.

My recollection is that Bombus lapidarius, although it has the longest proboscis, has also the shortest temper and most virulent venom, and if it be not set free as soon as its first angry note is heard, it will not fail to punish severely.
Notwithstanding this trait in its character, I have no hesitation in recommending that it is the one that should be sent out to New Zealand, and that Bombus terrestris should not be.—Thomas Belt, the Cedars, Ealing.

I will explain why he does not recommend B terrestris in the next post…
But, forgive them their occasional fit of pique, grow some of their favourite plants… or rather go easy on the weeding in your garden, as weeds seem to be their flower of choice.

What could be nicer than to have these strikingly beautiful bees gracing your flower beds and what a good excuse for that neglected patch… just don’t upset them!
I have spent hours pondering this handsome bee. Its beauty is in its dense blackness, contrasted with its flame red tail. The body tends to be naturally very curved which means that seen from above its head is almost always invisible, but it does have the appealing chubby bumble bee look.

However in the end I decided on more of a side view which shows off the beautiful tail and some head features, while retaining the really furry nature of the pile…. It’s always such a compromise..

Some final pencil sketches ..

Finished one soon …

Bee No 2: Tricoloured Bumble Bee: Bombus ternarius

By Val Littlewood October 28, 2009 January 25, 2020 Uncategorized

This is the most delightfully pretty bumble bee and chosen purely because of its lovely markings, with a cream heart on its thorax and brilliant red/orange bands.
They look a bit like little fuzzy bottle brushes. The “ternarius” in its name refers to the three abdominal colours of red yellow and black.
They are also called the Red tailed Bumble Bee, and the Orange Belted Bumble Bee.

The facts;

They are also sometime classified in the subgenus .. Pyrobombus.. I would like to think because of their fiery colour.
This is a small northern USA Bumble Bee, a worker just 8-13 mm, which according to the books, range from the Yukon to Nova Scotia, and south to Georgia, they are widespread but rarely observed south of Pennsylvania.

They like the flowers from the Rubus family: i.e. blackberries and raspberries, and the Vaccinium family; i.e. blueberry bilberry and huckleberry and are partial to Goldenrod too.

Orange-belted bumble bee, Bombus ternarius from University of Maine

“The orange-belted bumble bee queen emerges from hibernation in early spring. She must satisfy two immediate needs. She must nourish herself on flower nectar and pollen, and she must find a good place to raise a family. Queens spend hour upon hour cruising just above the ground looking for a suitable nest site underground, often settling in an abandoned mouse burrow.”

However, Linda Robb’s bees found themselves higher class accommodation by moving into her bird house. I have seen a couple of other references to Bumble Bees taking over bird boxes. What a nice idea.

This lovely photo of the Bombus ternarius colony by Linda is from her WhatsthatBug.com,entry, read more here….

This little bee just had to be drawn from above to show off its markings. Its “pile” is shorter than Bee No1 and these are chubby, neat little bees. Some initial sketches, to look at the colouring and the pose.

And the final painting…

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Bee number 2: The Tricoloured Bumble Bee, Bombus ternarious.

Tag: Deborah´s bees