Bee-draggled

Another day of almost constant light rain. In the morning Chris came over to produce some digital maps for my latest report. While he was working on that I had a very useful Teams meeting with three other members of our local wildlife group committee, to discuss what events we might hold this autumn. Given the age and vulnerability of many of our audience, we've decided to hold all our talks online, which will be a new departure for us, but I think it will work quite well. There will be a few people who won't manage the technology, but I think a surprising number of older people have become quite proficient at attending online events, so I think we'll get a decent attendance.

After lunch there was a slight lull in the precipitation, so I had a mooch round the garden looking for something to photograph. There were a few bumblebees on the flowers, some of which looked decidedly unhappy. But then I spotted this tiny, bedraggled bee sitting on one of our Heartleaf Ox-eye flowers. It was cold, wet and almost completely torpid, which allowed me to approach quite close.

When I showed it to Pete he confirmed that it was a male Large-headed Resin-bee Heriades truncorum, a new record for the garden. It is considered to be a scarce species with most records for south-east England, especially within London, Surrey and West Sussex. However, it appears to be spreading northwards, so its appearance in our garden is no surprise. It was recorded from another Peterborough garden last year.

Foraging is mainly from yellow-flowered Asteraceae - it must have been in its element when it found the Heartleaf Ox-eye which has very large flowers. Nesting typically occurs in dead wood, with nest cells seemingly always constructed from pine resin. This has led to suggestions that it may be a relatively recent colonist of Britain (where pines are not native) rather than an ancient native.