Flight of the Bumblebee

..Or perhaps that should be Plight of the BumbleBee.

They are becoming scarce, in fact I found out yesterday that two of our native BumbleBees species have become extinct in the UK within the last few decades which is awful and almost entirely due to human activity. Bees are vital especially nectar and pollen feeders, without them the planet's ecological system, which is already teetering on the edge, would pretty much collapse. Humans would starve as most of the plants we rely on for food would die out with no bees to pollinate the flowers. Many trees would cease to seed so no new trees and therefor the atmospheric conditions would change.

Bees need our support and anyone with a garden can help by growing more native or old plant species, even if it's just in a small patch you set aside. Exotic and highly bred flowers may look nice but they are useless to animals that rely on them for food and this is a huge problem.

Encourage bees to nest by buying premade nest boxes or making your own.

The use of insecticides and chemicals in gardens as well as agriculture is another culprit responsible for the decline in many species right up the food chain so please stop using them or if you must be careful what you use. You are also killing birds too as many feed on the insects you poison!! Wonder why there aren't so many butterfiles around?? Take a look at your pretty, un-naturally tidy, sterile garden and the chemicals in your shed....there's your reason!! You are killing summer and in doing so you are killing yourself.

If you need more information on how you can help the humble Bumble there are many websites including this one, The Bumblebee Conservation Trust.

I love the sound of summer days, it's such a wonderful sound, the buzzing of bees of all shapes and sizes as they flit from flower to flower in their endless search for nectar and pollen. I love watching them and even thought I had more than my fair share of bee stings as a child (catching Bumblebees with your bare hands is a rather stupid idea, even for a 3 year old) I will still quite happily wander in amongst the flowers as the bees fly around me. Unless you really frighten them they will not harm you at all.

I was highly delighted to discover we had a nest of White Tailed Bumblebees under our shed this year, something that would have had the average person reaching for the phone and dialing Pest Control, but then I'm not the average person. I welcome our little fuzzy friends and wish I had something better than a compact digital camera so I could take better pictures of them, but hey!

The topmost picture shows my favourite and she is huge. I wish I'd thought to get something in the photo that would show her size but at a guess she's at least 4cm in length perhaps even pushing 5cm. One of the biggest I've seen. She has a very low flight path and very deep droning buzz. I looked her up on the internet to find out what this red tailed BumbleBee is called and found that she's a Red Tailed BumbleBee, well fancy that!! I'd never seen this species before I moved to the house I have been in this last 9 years. On a good day in my garden there's probably at least four BumbleBee species and three bee species as well as goodness knows how many other insects.
Hopefully I can make my messy garden even more wildlife friendly in the years to come and help preserve the sound of summer.