Happy Solitary Bee Week! 🐝 Did you know that most types of bee don’t live in colonies?

I make tea from a wild plant used by the Ancient Greeks and Romans for medicine and beekeeping 🌿

Happy World Bee Day!🐝🥳 Here’s a collage of some of the bee species I have photographed in the garden so far this year: My garden bee list is at over 20 species now!

A Downy Emerald dragonfly (Cordulia aenea), freshly emerged as an adult and still warming up its wing muscles. Großer Tiergarten, Berlin.

The Bee-eating Beetle (Trichodes alvearius) Photographed this week in Germany. This species should be in the UK too, but was pushed to extinction in the 19th century. Maybe if we manage to stabilise our bee populations we can think about bringing this beautiful beetle back?

Today I was examining some beautiful fossilised insects: Two dragonflies from the Jurassic limestone of Solnhofen, Bavaria, now on display Berlin Natural History Museum. Compare them to these two dragonflies I photographed last year in Oxford, only around 150 million years later!

Male and female Banded Demoiselles (Calopteryx splendens) photographed in a pub garden!

Here’s another bee! The Blue Mason Bee (Osmia caerulescens). The males seem to be territorial and this one has claimed the herb garden as his. He chases away any other insects that try to land there!

Red Mason Bee (Osmia bicornis) If you zoom into his face you can see how much he sparkles! (& his extra eyes 👁️ 👁️)

A quick but very exciting update on my mason bee eggs 🐝🥚

Sometimes waiting for the mining bees to come out of their burrows takes quite a lot of patience…

An Orange-tailed Mining Bee (Andrena haemorrhoa), with her legs covered in pollen, waiting to take it back into her nest in the lawn.

My daily lunchtime check in with the mason bee nests: I noticed that a lot of them have a ‘porch’ where the mothers have constructed a sealed cell at the front which doesn’t contain an egg or pollen. I guess it’s an extra line of defence against parasites and predators. Very interesting.

Did you know that honeybees communicate through dance? 🐝

Dear The Royal Entomological Society, I am afraid I can no longer read the wonderful new book on honeybees that I agreed to review because my cat has fallen asleep on it and he is very comfortable and so cannot possibly be moved. Best wishes, Juliet.

Here are five forms of life I found by looking closely at the branch of an oak tree. 🌳 Mottled Umber Moth (Erannis defoliaria) Spongy Moth (Lymantria dispar) Winter Moth (Operophtera brumata) Striped Oak Bug (Rhabdomiris striatellus) Common Spangle Gall Wasp (Neuroterus quercusbaccarum)

We have a wild hedgehog who lives in our garden and is friends with our cat (this isn’t their first meeting, they know each other well)

Have you ever wondered if insects have a concept of beauty? 🦋

a moment of appreciation for this Ashy Mining Bee’s brilliant moustache

When I finish work, the first thing I do is check on the garden bees 🐝

Found on the way to the shop yesterday! I think these are caterpillars of the Mottled Umber moth (Erannis defoliaria) This is your sign to look closely at hedgerows as you pass. 😊

In case you didn’t already want to listen to me talk about moths for a minute, this is punctuated by my cat sprinting through the frame approximately every ten seconds!

Not everything that comes to a moth trap is a moth, but I think I am even more excited when a parasitoid wasp appears. Here is a beautiful Ichneumonid I trapped yesterday:

I’m ready to admit that I haven’t given micro moths as much attention as they deserved. A recent encounter with a Horse-chestnut Leafminer + an opalescent Tachystola acroxantha this morning in the trap have helped me come to this important realisation.

Have you ever seen a bee egg? Let me show you! 🐝🥚

I met a roe deer in yesterday’s golden hour

Another beautiful species of moth that we have in the garden is the Brimstone (Opisthograptis luteolata) 🌙

The story of the scarlet tigers living in our garden 🐅🦋

My first damselfly of this Spring! Freshly emerged from our pond, this is a Large Red Damselfly (Pyrrhosoma nymphula).

I spent the entire day on Sunday watching mason bees interact in my garden. 🐝 Here’s some of the drama that unfolded:

Coffee breaks are greatly enhanced if you can step outside and watch bees while the kettle boils ☕️

I spent the entire day in the garden watching the mason bees interacting at our bee hotel (it was a day well spent).

Photographed today in the garden: A mating pair of Red Mason Bees (Osmia bicornis)💘

I’m having a great time because our lawn is full of bees!

Just went to look at my bee house. Someone was there looking right back at me!

Sometimes the best way to see unusual insects is to just sit beside a flowering plant and wait…

Thrilled that the local ground-nesting bees have chosen our garden once again as a suitable place to raise their brood🌱 Now let’s wait and see who appears 👀

I saw some really beautiful forms of life in the woods today.

Nomad bees on the Isle of Anglesey this week 🌊

I found the males of the same species further up the hill, congregating around this outcrop. They had a good view from up there!

I was very happy to find this Tawny Mining Bee ‘village’ this week! 🐝🏡 There were countless volcano-like burrow entrances all up the side of this hill. I sat and watched the females going in and out of the nests for a long time.

Update! Say hello to my new friends 👋 Cushion Star (Asterina gibbosa) Chiton (Lepidochitona cinerea) Sea Lemon (Archidoris pseudoargus) & Hermit Crab (Pagurus bernhardus)

Rockpooling in North Wales, hoping for an octopus or maybe a basking shark. Will settle for a nice starfish or a nudibranch. 🦑

Here are four lifeforms I photographed at a wetland in Wales yesterday

I photographed my first Ashy Mining Bee (Andrena cineraria) of the year yesterday in Hyde Park 🪺

a female Hairy-footed Flower Bee visiting Oxfordshire’s county flower - the Snake’s Head Fritillary 🐍

a little Holly Blue (Celastrina argiolus) for this species to breed in your garden, you will need to provide Holly or Ivy 🍃 (We have Ivy - its flowers attract many other visitors too.)

This is what my camera roll looks like after spending my lunch break in the garden 🌿

Today my garden was visited by a Blue Mason Bee / Osmia caerulescens 🫶