Tormented

This weary bumblebee landed on our conservatory windowledge this afternoon and began grooming. While I was photographing it a tiny pink acarine mite (which I think is Parasitellus) crawled out of the fur under the bee's wing, climbed down under its abdomen and then climbed up its thorax...

... before crawling down into the fur again between the head and thorax. The bee was clearly irritated by the mite and tried to comb it off, with no success.

Here you can see it burrowing down behind the bee's head. Opinion seems to be divided about how much damage these mites do. It may be that - like the Varroa mite that infests honeybees - some species transmit diseases between bumblebees and some species may weaken their host when they suck its body fluids through weak points in the bee's joints, where they attach themselves. Apparently Parasitellus doesn't feed on bees but merely uses them for transport between bees' nests, where it feeds on the wax of the brood cells. I suspect that pink patch on this bee's knee is another mite, tucked in between the joints in the leg. Some mite species actually enter their hosts body through the spiracles and live attached to the respiratory organs, as internal parasites. Such mites weaken their host, although their effect isn't likely to be as devastating as thick-headed flies, whose larvae live as internal parasites of bumblebees.

The Bells! The Bells!

There are two Campanula species that flower around haymaking time in Weardale. This is giant bellflower C.latifolia, which favours shady verges and - in this case - a permanently moist corner of a field near Stanhope Dene.

Harebell C. rotundifolia is characteristic of dry grassland, where its slender stems mean that the bells constantly dance in the wind, and there are some lovely patches of it around some Weardale haymeadows where ...

.... farmers have been turning the new-mown hay, hoping that it will dry in the sun before wet weather arrives.

Fabulous Fungi

Autumn is still some way off but there are already some fine displays of fungi around, thanks to warm, moist weather. We encountered this amazing display of fairy inkcap Coprinellus disseminatus on a fallen tree in Stanhope Dene in Weardale, County Durham last weekend.

Hundreds of tiny toadstools, each less than a couple of inches high, smothered the trunk and branches.

A carpet of damp moss provided the perfect cover for the fungal mycelium that produced this spectacular display, which will have only lasted a few days.

This toadstool - the dryad's saddle Polyporus squamosus - is more durable and was growing on the base of an ash tree beside the Ripon Canal a couple of weeks ago. The upper tiers of 'shelves' were still expanding.

From above, showing the distinctive pattern of scales on the cap. Next time I find one of these I must take a sniff because John Ramsbottom, in the classic New Naturalist book on Mushrooms & Toadstools published in 1953, claims that it smells like uncooked tripe - not that I know what uncooked tripe smells like....