Picture of a bumblebee on a flower in Yorkshire.Summer is almost over and most of our wildflowers have now withered and gone but gardens and public parks still have quite a few flowers in them. I photographed this bumblebee busy on this flower a couple of days back.
There are around 250 species of bee here in the UK and of those there are 24 different bumblebees. Since 1940 2 species of native bumblebee have become extinct and the numbers of many of the others have crashed.
I am I think pretty good at identifying our native wildflowers but when it comes to bees I am rather at sea. I could perhaps on a good day name and identify 6 different types of bee and unlike one of my friends I can tell a bee from a wasp.
Bumblebee Conservation have a nice website with lots of information on the plight of the bumblebee and also how to identify them and what you can do to help this beautiful busy little creature.
Bees are important in the natural world of our gardens, they pollinate our flowers and fruit and also provide food for our birds too.
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Nice close up. The same bumblebee exist in Canada. I have seen them almost every where.
ReplyDeleteGreat splash of colour!
ReplyDeleteIdentifying 6 bees is pretty darn impressive! Beautiful photo, you've got great bee captures. It's sad to think of native species crashing like that - it's becoming all too familiar a phenomenon.
ReplyDelete(So true, we take for granted that child labor is not acceptable, yet it wasn't so long ago that factories were teeming with child laborers. How history moves along).
I usually use the internet to identify bees and insects. Always a bid sad when Summer comes to an end I think. Nice and colorful macro photo here.
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