With warm and sunny days, the early bees can now be seen buzzing around the spring flowers in bloom at Sun Rising. Up amidst the blackthorn flowers and pussy willow there is the hum of busy bees, and down in the grass, beautiful big queen bees are filling up with energy after a winter’s hibernation.
The daffodils are past their best now, the primroses a little tatty after the occasional overnight frost, but the cowslips are still emerging. In a week or so, with some rain and sunshine, the meadow each side of the track to the roundhouse should be bright with their hopeful, little yellow flowers. And the bees do love them!
My identification may be wrong (I’ll let you know), but I suspect this may be a female hairy-footed flower bee, Anthophora plumipes. One of our largest solitary bees, bumblebee-sized but not actually a bumble, these bees are not uncommon at this time of year, in gardens and other flower-rich areas.
Cowslips and Hairyfooted Flower Bee
Do note, we have a talk on bees by entomologist and author Steven Falk, on Saturday 14 September this year. Check our Events page, and let us know if you’d like to come along.
