In late September, I wrote a piece about the discovery of the Ivy Bee Colletes hederae in our Oldbrook garden. I asked for fellow members to let me know if they had found this bee in their local patch and have since continued to look for it elsewhere in Milton Keynes.
Shortly after the article appeared on our website, Julie Lane contacted me to say that she too had found the ivy bee, at home in Olney. This is exciting news and suggests that this insect is already found widely across this area.
On 17th October, Helen and I went for a walk along the canal at Old Wolverton. I have known the towpath walk since childhood and was aware of the great masses of ivy which grow along the embankment – always a good place to look for insects in the autumn. Sure enough, not more than 50 meters from the Iron Trunk, there were several specimens of C.hederae nectaring on the ivy right next to the path. They were in the company of honey bees and it was useful to be able to compare these two species, so similar in appearance at first glance.
Better still was to come – last Tuesday (20th October) I stopped off at Stonepit Field in Great Linford in late morning. I wanted to see the scarlet wax caps that Martin Ferns had reported and was pleased to find plenty of these colourful fungi on the limestone scrape. As I crouched down to photograph one, I saw an ivy bee emerging from a small burrow. I looked closer and was pleased to see at least twenty or more ivy bees going in and out of their neat little burrows. One or two were killed by common wasps but I measured the length of the colony as around 31 meters. I was delighted to find a thriving colony of ivy bee – the first I have ever seen outside of Dorset.
Given a reasonably warm, sunny day, it should still be possible to see these bees between now and mid-November.
Martin Kincaid
(Photo © Martin Kincaid)