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Bees of Great Britain and Ireland published

Submitted by Nigel Jones on

BWARS member Steven Falk's much anticipated Field Guide to Bees of Great Britain and Ireland has been published.  This is the first extensive guide to all the British and Irish bee species since Edward Saunder's 1896 tome - The Hymenoptera Aculeata of the British Islands. The new field guide is 432 pages, with keys, species accounts and many photographs of nearly every species. In addition there are many illustrations by renowned insect illustrator Richard Lewington.

New key to Chrysididae available

Submitted by Nigel Jones on

A superbly illustrated key to the Chrysididae of the Nordic and Baltic countries (in English) is available as a free download. It should provide a very useful aid to identifying wasps in the family Chrysididae. The key includes all the British mainland species apart from Chrysis rutiliventris* . It can be downloaded here

* C. vanlithi - treated as a subspecies of C. rutiliventris by some authors - is included in the key.

Can you help? BWARS recorders - NBN survey

Submitted by Nigel Jones on

The NBN are running a short project seeking to classify recorder motivations, and understand what support different recorders prefer. They're using both questionnaires and interviews, and need as wide a range of responses as possible to cover the diversity of circumstances and perspectives. If you collect data from the environment and would like to be included, further details are here:

 

Colletes hederae arrives in North Wales

Submitted by Nigel Jones on

A significant leap north west for Colletes hederae is apparent, with the discovery of a well established population around Llandudno in North Wales, on 8 October. A large nest aggregation was found on Little Orme as well as individuals at ivy and nesting in a roadside verge in nearby Llandudno. The latest map includes these new records.
Latest Map

Ian Cheesborough and Pete Boardman at Little Orme
BWARS member Ian Cheeseborough and Pete Boardman at the site of the recently discovered nest aggregation of Colletes hederae on the Little Orme.

Beginners Workshop 28 November - Cardiff

Submitted by Nigel Jones on

As usual there has been a steady stream of requests for identifications of aculeates, often from photographs. Helping new people to understand how to name the insects in this group, what to look for, whether the insect even is an aculeate, is an important part of the support BWARS offers. Much of this support is through the workshops held at various venues around the country.

South West Bees Survey Report for 2014 published by Buglife

Submitted by Nigel Jones on

Buglife have produced a report detailing the results of a survey for seven bee species in south west England.

The report presents the findings of the project’s first ground-truthing surveys from May to August 2014. The objectives of these surveys were:

  • To confirm the presence of target species on sites with historic records -
  • To evaluate habitat suitability on surveyed sites -
  • To add to information on the autecology of target species

 

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