Bees

I said in my last post that there didn't seem to be many butterflies around this year, either here in Milan or in my garden in London. Well, for bees Milan is just the same - I've not seen any this year. The hard winter again, or more problems of colony collapse disorder?

But when I was in London I was pleased to see that they were absolutely everywhere - and snapped away like crazy taking photos.

There were some honeybees (at least I think that's what this one is)...



But the vast majority were bumblebees. Which made me realise that I didn't really know very much about bees at all. How many types were there? What were the differences ? I knew that honeybees lived in colonies but that there were also solitary bees. What was the difference? How did you recognise them? And where do the bumblebees fit in? Were they social or solitary? And was CCD affecting all types of bees or just the honeybees?

So I did some research - and found some excellent websites, which are listed below. I'm not going to regurgitate it all, but I was surprised to find out that in the UK alone there are some 300 different species of bee - about 270 of which are solitary.

Solitary bees make a nest by burrowing into soil, soft brick or whatever. The female then gathers pollen and nectar, forms it into a patty, pops it into the far end of the burrow, lays a single egg on top and then seals that section of the burrow up before doing the same in the next bit - and so on up to the end. The very last egg is always male (bees have this strange ability to decide the sex of their children). The eggs hatch, and the larvae consume the food left for them and then pupate. The pupae all hatch at the same moment but the male, being closest to the exit, is the first to burrow his way out. He then waits for his sisters, mates with them, and the whle thing starts all over again. All a bit incestuous, but there you are.

So how do you identify a solitary bee? Well, by Googling them, obviously. I think this may be one ...

... and possibly this one too. Or is it just some sort of fly desperately trying to pretend he's terribly fierce?

Bombus bumblebees, on the other hand, are social and live in colonies. Unlike the honeybees, however, they don't store large quantities of food and all but the young already fertilised queens will die off in the winter. The queens hibernate and then in the spring secrete beeswax to form little cups which they fill with nectar and pollen, laying an egg in each one. As the new workers reach maturity, they start to collect food for the later-hatched larvae. But having only one season in which to form, the colonies remain quite small - whilst a honeybee colony may contain up to 70,000 individuals, bumblebee colonies rarely exceed about 300 and are often smaller.

But what I didn't realise was that there are nine species of Bombus bumblebee in the UK, some very common others quite rare. What were mine? To me, they all looked quite different. This one seemed to fit the description of the most common British type - the Buff-tailed Bumble bee. But the others? The colouring and stripes didn't sem to match. So I sent a few photos off to the Bumblebee Conservation trust (see below) for identification. Would I find that my garden was a home to rare bees?

Nah... the answer came back after a couple of days. All common as muck Buff Tailers.

Except for one. So far there has been no answer for the little one below who I found happily feeding off my borage. Could the delay be because I've discovered something rare? Doubt it. More likely that you just can't see enough from the photo to tell. My own suspicion is that this is not a Bombus bumblebee but a Psithyrus or cuckoo bumblebee - there are six species but don't ask me which this is. These are sneaky. They lay their eggs in the nests of the Bombus bumblebees and let them do all the work. You can tell the difference between the Bombus and Psithyrus bumblebees by looking at their legs. The cuckoos don't need to store food for their larvae and so don't have pollen sacs on their legs - sacs which you can see clearly in the photos of some of the Buff Tailers in the other photos, but which don't seem to be present here.



Will I be right? We'll see. If I get an answer I'll add it in the comment box below. But in case they don't get back to me - any bumblebee experts out there?

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Bumblebee Conservation Trust Bumblebee Identification
Natural History Museum Bumblebee Identification Guide
The British Bee Keepers Association : bees4kids - The Importance of Bees
Watanabe, M. Colony Collapse Disorder : Many Suspects, No Smoking Gun

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Butterflies - the bad news, the good news

A whole post about butterflies and four photos without a butterfly in sight? Unfortunately, that's the point. I've hardly seen any this year.

Have you got butterflies in your gardens at the moment? When I was in London at the beginning of June I didn't see one, and here in Milan they are still very few and far between, despite the fact that there's plenty on the balcony to attract them. In the last week I've seen one or two fluttering around, but so far there's been no caterpillar damage at all - whereas by the beginning of June the hollyhock are usually lacy with holes and the caterpillarium is swarming with inhabitants munching their way through anything I've put in there.

Bad news. You may not like the caterpillars chomping at your prize flowers and veg, but they're an essential part of the ecosystem. Birds eat caterpillars, especially when they're raising their chicks, and the adult butterflies - apart from being a beautiful addition to the garden - are pollinators. Not the best maybe, but they play their part. No pollinators? No plants next year.

So why have they disappeared? I suspect it was the particularly hard winter we had. Here in Milan it went down to - 14°C one night. That's less than 7°F.

Butterflies either hibernate in the winter, or over-winter in chrysalis form. But I suspect that with temperatures that cold, a lot just didn't make it.

Which brings me to the good news. One type that I've not seen at all on the balcony this year is the dreaded Geranium Bronze Butterfly (Cacyreus Marshalli), which attacks both geraniums and pelargoniums and usually starts being a problem in May.

I'd decided not to bother with pelargoniums of any sort at all this year. Over the last couple of years I'd lost all those that I had to the GBB. It started slowly, with a couple being killed off each year, but then each year it got worse and worse, until not only had all the plants I'd had for years been destroyed but also any that I bought new would be dead within a couple of months. So no more, I said. The only way to solve the problem is not to buy them. And I didn't. Well, not for the house anyway. But for the office, I couldn't resist ...

And they're fine. No sign of public enemy number two (number one is red spider mite - and even that has not been quite so virulent as usual this year). They're thriving, keep bursting into flower and making me wish I'd bought more.

GBB is native of South Africa, so the idea that they couldn't survive the excessive cold does make sense. Hurray - perhaps that will check their advance through southern Europe a bit.

There is another possibility though. It could just be that they have hidden interests that entomologists have never suspected. And so they've all gone home to watch the football ...

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A sorry sight ...

I've always had pelargoniums on the balcony. Common as muck they may be, but in full bloom they're glorious. And with a bit of protection they will not only over-winter, and but also sometimes keep on flowering . If you were reading this blog a few years ago, you'll know that I had one container of salmon-pink zonal pelargoniums that went on for two and half years - in all that time, even in January when it was wrapped up in fleece, there wasn't a moment when it wasn't in bloom.

But each year it got progressively more difficult to keep them alive through the summer. And last year I lost the lot.

So this year I replaced them all. Zonals, ivy-leafed, regals .... Here they are in May this year...

And I've lost the lot again.

Why? Again if you've been reading regularly for a few years, you'll guess. It's this ...

Cacyreus Marshalli, or the Geranium Bronze Butterfly. It's always been a problem, but for the last couple of years it's been impossible to keep the plants alive.

A quick recap for those of you who aren't familiar with it. Native to S.Africa (as are pelargoniums), it was introduced to S. Europe about twenty years ago and has been spreading like wildfire ever since. It's been in Italy since 1996, and is now posing a severe threat to commercial pelargonium cultivation - apart from anything else, because people are starting to avoid buying the plants, knowing they won't survive.

Why does it do so much damage? The larvae of the butterfly don't feed on the leaves. They burrow right into the stems and eat the plant from the inside out, killing it. If you can spot the tell-tale holes you can sometimes cut off the affected part - but over the season you frequently end up cutting back the whole plant.

And go away for a few weeks, like I always have to in the summer (...have to? Only a gardener could feel like that about a holiday ) and you come back to this ...

What can be done about them? There don't seem to be many organic options. One of the studies recommends the "natural" insecticide Bacillus thuringiensis Kurstaki - but don't ask me where I'd get hold of it. (Wonder how many times longer than the bacteria the name is?) There is also an insect with the equally wonderful name of Macrolophus caliginosus Wagner, which feeds off the eggs and hatchling larvae - but ditto, and would it stay on the balcony anyway? Another source suggested companion planting. Highly aromatic plants like lavender, mint and thyme are supposed to discourage the butterfly. Well, I can try - but I have my doubts. By pure chance I did have mint growing fairly near the pelargoniums this year. Not close enough maybe ...

Other than that, it seems there are only two choices - swamp the plants with noxious chemicals, or give up on pelargoniums all together. Don't like the first, and don't want to do the second. But it seems the only other option is to invite yet another massacre ...

Useful Links

Lupi and Zucker, The butterfly cacyreus marshalli in Northern Italy and susceptibility of commercial cultivars of pelargonium.

Regione del Veneto, Il licenide dei gerani

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Hummingbird Hawk-moth

Mum, come quick - there's a thing on your plants!

And what a thing. It was a Hummingbird Hawk-moth (Macroglossum stellatarum) - an insect which visits the balcony occasionally, but is by no means common. If I see one a year I'm lucky, and this was certainly the first I've spotted this year.

Excuse the not-exactly-perfect photos. They're not called Hummingbird Hawk-moths for nothing - they don't land on the plants but hover above them, keeping themselves alight by rapid wing flapping while they suck the nectar through their long proboscis (you can see it in the second and last photos). And they flit frequently from flower to flower. Which makes them difficult to photograph - especially when you've had to rush back into the house desperately trying to remember where you'd left your camera, and praying it would still be there when you got back. Which it was - but I had no time to worry about camera settings. I just clicked and hoped. However, if you follow some of the links you'll find some much clearer photos.

I knew they were described in a book I have (Collins Complete Guide to British Wildlife - a super book for basic identification of plants, birds, animals and insects found in the UK which I recommend highly), so later I went to look it up. They are apparently widespread across Mediterranean countries, central Asia and Japan, and get as far north as Scotland in the summer. In fact, following things up on the web later, I came across the UK Butterfly Conservation site, where you can record sightings. Mine's there now.

The adults love plumbago - that's where I almost always see them. But the book told me that the larvae feed on bedstraw.

My mind boggled. Was this beautiful insect in danger of dying out because of a lack of impoverished peasants stuffing their mattresses with straw? Were hypoallergenic fillings signalling the end of a species?

But no. Bedstraw is the common name of the genus Galium - which includes wildflowers such as Lady's Bedstraw and Hedge Bedstraw. I've not seen either growing much around Milan - which probably explains why we don't see the moths very often.

Moths. They look so different that it's hard to believe they really are moths - and one Italian site I found says that their visitors often mistake them for real hummingbirds. No sorry - not in Europe. I wish.

Ah well - that was my annual sighting, I thought. But then I came across this on the BBC Science and Nature site : Studies have noted that they have a remarkable memory, and return to the same flowerbeds at the same time everyday.

So maybe I should keep an eye open over the weekend.


Explore some more ...

Other nice sites which describe the hummingbird hawk-moth include :

The RSPB site

UK Moths

UK Safari

Wikipedia

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Synchronised leaf stripping

I found these caterpillars in the garden yesterday - they're quite clearly in training for the next Olympics, which are being held a couple of miles from here. The synchronised leaf stripping event. Not bad - though the ones on the bottom need to get their tails up a bit more if they're to be in with a chance. I could wish they'd waited a bit longer to move into the area though - my garden is not the Olympic Village and they're polishing off what little is left of my poor roses. Oh well, sport has to be encouraged amongst the young, I suppose ...

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Clean shaven caterpillars?

The boys are back. And I was wondering where they'd got to. Whereas by this time of year the caterpillarium is usually fully inhabited, this year I've not even had to think about it. Until last week that is.

Apart from the dreaded geranium bronze butterfly (cacyreus marshalli) we only really get two types of caterpillar on the balcony, which I suspect are cabbage white larvae. One is the one in the photo above. What is it? The colours are right for the large cabbage white, but it lacks the bristles that all the photos on the net seem to show. We do have a lot of white butterflies around, definitely of the Pieridae family, but the marking isn't quite that of the ones that I've seen illustrated. The other type of caterpillar is green with yellow markings, but doesn't seem to have been around this year at all. Again, it would appear to be very similar to the small Cabbage White, but without the bristles.

Butterflies do, however, exhibit regional variations so I suspect my identifications are correct and its just that Italian caterpillars are clean shaven. Italian men don't go much for beards either, so its obviously a cultural factor.

Anyway, I found the lad in the first photo, plus seven of his brothers and sisters, happily chomping away at an antirrhinum plant. Six are visible in the photo above - can you spot them? In comparison with last year's invasion, when they just about decimated the balcony, this lot are no problem. The plant had finished flowering and I can afford to lose it, so I've left them where they are.

The Geranium Bronze butterfly caterpillar is another matter however. These are definitely not clean shaven but short, squat and bristly. And a sort of odd lozenge shape. But by the time you see them it's too late. The young larva starts life by burrowing into the stems and eating the plant from the inside - see the tell-tale hole?

By the time it emerges as a full grown caterpillar the damage is done. The whole stem has been destroyed.

They're native to South Africa but arrived in Europe twenty years ago and are now widespread over southern Europe, while northern Europe is trying desperately to keep them out. The colder climates in the north may help to stop them spreading, but here they're a plague. I haven't got a plant that's not affected this year. There was an article in the paper the other day saying that geranium sales are down dramatically this year. The article was trying to put it down to the economic recession, but rather contradicted itself by saying that petunias and other annuals are holding their own. I wonder if it isn't just that people are changing away from geraniums because they just get too damaged and tatty. The butterflies are pretty little things, but give me the cabbage whites any day.

Explore some more ...

Cacyreus Marshalli, from the UK Department for the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs

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Luxury Flat to Let (One Room to Share) with Built-In Restaurant

I have posted before on the plague of caterpillars which are devouring almost every plant I've got this year. I'm having to pick them off daily and am still not winning. But as I'm not into killing things, they all go into the caterpillarium.

The caterpillarium started when my son was small and I wanted him to see how caterpillars turned into butterflies. It's an old toy box partly filled with soil into which go various "extra" seedlings which I'd otherwise have thrown away, plus any plant which is too far gone to save - this year there have been a lot of the latter. In go the caterpillars, which then chomp away, pupate, hatch - and lay their eggs on my plants once more. So we start all over again.

I had to redo the whole thing today as everything had been eaten by previous generations. On the menu we have : spider plant, antirrhinums, alyssum, hollyhock and various other bits and pieces. Needless to say, I make sure to put in the plants that they seem to attack most in order to encourage them to stay put. Now if only I could find a way of directing the butterflies straight there ...

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Invasion of the toxic caterpillars

I've mentioned before that I've been having problems with caterpillars this year, and it's been getting worse and worse. We always have some, but nothing like this year. I've been going out every day to pick them off, and I've still lost about a third of my plants. For the first time ever red spider mite has paled into insignificance in comparison.

So I was interested today to come across a videoed news report on the BBC site about an invasion of toxic caterpillars in Belgium. It's such a plague that they're having to mobilise the army to deal with them. I can't link directly to the video, but click here and it will take you to the right page to find it (see the right hand sidebar).

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Cacyreus marshalli ... and company

May is the month the pests come back, and I've already had my first run-in with red spider mite. I think I won, but it's only the first battle in a war which will go on till the autumn, so I'm now checking daily and spraying regularly as a preventative measure with a mixture of onion, garlic, cloves and cayenne pepper which I found on a site called Bonsai Garden.

Other pests are also rampant and my caterpillarium now has a large number of residents chomping away. Unfortunately, I haven't always been able to move them in on time. I was in Tuscany for a couple of days last week and came back to find one of my chrysanthemums in an extremely sorry state - half eaten by voracious green caterpillars, and the other half infested by blackfly.

But the most worrying thing this year is the enormous number of geranium bronze butterfly (cacyreus marshalli) caterpillars that I've found. This is a pest that is rare so far in the UK and one that you're supposed to report officially if you see it - you can see photos and get details on the site for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. But it transferred to southern Europe from Africa some years back, and in Italy is now well established. Not surprising, as it can go through 5 or 6 generations a year. It attacks pelargoniums, and though the mature caterpillars feed on the leaves and flowers and so are easy to spot and pick off, by then the damage has been done. There's an earlier stage where the newly hatched larvae bury into the stems and tunnel down through the plant, and that's what really does the damage. So there's no way of confining this one to the caterpillarium.

Acknowledgement : Photo of the geranium bronze butterfly provided under Creative Commons Licence by zigari44 via flickr

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On Bees

Rivahgal's message on my last post must have been telepathy - I wrote the post that follows yesterday evening, but didn't have time to publish it, and then found her message today.

Watching a programme on TV on Friday – a sort of science and nature news and documentary programme – I heard an alarming item about bees. It seems that numbers in Europe and the US are decreasing rapidly. Billions of bees have died - and it’s being put down to mobile phones.

It worried me enough to follow it up, and I came across this article from The Independent. The theory is that the electronic signals from the phones disrupt the bees’ navigation systems, they can’t find their way home and die. As do the Queen and young bees left in the abandoned hive.

I spent part of this morning sitting outside on bee watch - not one, despite the fact that the balcony is now full of flowers which normally attract them. It's not proof of anything, as being in the centre of the city we don't get a lot of bees anyway. But there would normally be an occasional visit over an hour or so.

The British government has denied that there’s evidence of a problem with mobiles – but something is obviously making the bees disappear. And until they find out for sure what it is, I’m turning my mobile off.

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The First Butterfly

Out on the balcony on Sunday, I saw that a cocoon which had been hanging on the wall of the house all winter had hatched, and the butterfly was sitting on the French window surround drying her wings. The first butterfly of spring. Then later, while clearing out some hollyhocks which I'd not used for the containers, I found ...

... the first of the next generation. So it's time to get the caterpillarium going again - an old toybox of my son's which I fill with all the "extra" seedlings which for some reason I decide not to use. And I then transfer to there all the caterpillars which I find on the plants which I don't want to lose.

At the moment though, I've got it covered with fleece. On Sunday it was 21°C. Now, two days later, it's 7°, and they're predicting it may go as low as 1°. And just when all the seeds I planted over the last three weeks were starting to germinate ...

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Indian Summer

I said last week that the temperature had dropped and called the post The Beginning of Winter. This week we've had record temperatures for the time of year. It's been up to about 25°C some days, and this morning I was back out on the balcony in a T-shirt. A few things gave up when the temperature fell last week, and I spent most of the morning clearing them out, but everything that didn't is continuing to flower happily. And as you can see from the photo, the bees are continuing to visit. At the back of the house there's a medlar tree which is now in flower, and this morning it was covered in swarms of bees and the odd butterfly. Most of the butterflies seem to have succumbed to the cold though - I haven't seen any of the little brown ones which were so common up to a few weeks ago.

All very nice, but as I gardened this morning I was wondering what havoc it was liable to play with the environment in general. Turned on the TV to watch the BBC World news over lunch, and found a feature on how climate change in the world as a whole is threatening to turn large areas of Africa to desert. And checking on their schedule for the rest of the day, there's a programme this evening on the melting of the Arctic permafrost and the catastrophe that it's liable to cause because of greenhouse gases being released. A depressing end for an otherwise lovely, sunny Sunday morning...

The medlar tree flowers between November and February

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