Tag: Tawny mining bee

Back to the Bees… and A Book with Me in it..

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I said earlier this month that I would be getting back to the bee paintings and the first is going to be the lovely Bombus ruderatus for the Beautiful Beasts blog.  Bombus ruderatus: the Large Garden (or Ruderal) Bumble bee This bee has a special significance for me as the only time I have ever seen one, to my knowledge, was in my father’s  garden.  I had seen a big all black “something” flying around the yellow archangel for a couple of days and then luckily one day I had my camera. If it had been the more usual striped  variety I would probably not have noticed it. You can see more about this bee on my post “A Fenland Bee” here.

It is also the Iconic Bee for the East Midlands so a perfect Fenland “Beautiful Beast” and coincidently I thought I saw one on Sunday at the Holme Fen visitor info stop. There is a wonderful large planting of white and red dead nettle by the notifications boards which is a favourite flower for these long faced, long tongued bees. So far I am just making some notes, rough ideas and colour sketches.

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The all black version, which is the one I will be painting is officially called Bombus ruderatus var.harrisellus

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Habitat sketch from Holme Fen and, yes the unexpected Highland cattle are there  to help manage the grass land. Thinking about the bees in the white dead nettle.

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And as I saw the big black bee in Dad’s garden on the yellow lamium

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These small sketches are about 5 x4 inches

In the Garden

I was also so very pleased to see for the first time this year the gorgeous Tawny Mining bee.My photo does not do justice to the prettiness of this little bee with her beautiful foxy two tone colours. I had rescued her from a spider’s web, she is just taking a moment on my hand to regain her composure.

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And also, I have, at last, seen the Hairy Footed flower bees, both male and female on the pulmonaria.

A Book with Me in It!

It’s a big thank you to lovely, bee friendly, Andrew Tyzak for asking me to contribute to his wonderful book. “Drawing and Painting Insects”

Andrew draws and paints and makes exquisite prints of insects and runs the website Bees in Art. I am honoured to be alongside such high quality artists and at a generous 200 pages, the book is packed with images of insects of all kinds, in painting drawing and prints. There is also lots of info on how to go about painting and drawing these fascinating creatures. I was particularly delighted to see my Great Yellow Bumble Bee on the cover!

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About me and the bees

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Some step by steps of my work….

The book is available from all good bookshops! First the book, next the film ….:)

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

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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…

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

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

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

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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 Arthropods” here.

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 from “Solitary 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

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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. “

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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

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