Titanic struggle: Garden spider versus bumblebee

 

We witnessed a titanic battle between an unfortunate bumblebee and a female garden spider Araneus diadematus that had spun her web on the flight path to Michaelmas daisies in the abbey garden, Hexham, Northumberland last week. For a while it looked like the frantically buzzing bee might escape, but then the spider’s poisonous fangs found a weak spot and the struggle subsided.

Then the spider suspended its prize on a thicker thread and spun it round and round with its feet, wrapping it a silken shroud paid out from the spinnerets on the tip of her abdomen.