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When we were in Newcastle today we came across this group of beekeepers learning their trade underneath Byker bridge at the Ouseburn Farm.
The growth of beekeeping is apparently one of the factors that led to Newcastle being voted Britain's Greenest City and the city council even has a web site devoted to beekeeping and bee conservation, here
Urban beekeeping is a fast-growing hobby and has several dedicated websites - e.g. here and here and there's an article to read with a lot more links here
Snake's Head Fritillaria meleagris is described in most floras as being 'doubtfully native' in Britain and because it's so commonly planted it's difficult to be sure whether plants within its supposedly 'natural' range, in the Thames Valley, are 'wild' plants. It's been seeding itself around my garden in Durham ever since I first planted it, about 20 years ago, and this year's crop of flowers have been opening earlier than usual during the current heatwave, attracting numerous bumblebees that visit the flowers for nectar. This is the bee's-eye view of the nodding flower, showing ripe stamens and a stigma with three lobes curling backwards, ready to receive pollen from a visiting bee.
For some more exotic Fritillaria species, click here
I've been watching this female blackbird in the garden for several days, while she has been collecting nest material and building her nest in the ivy at the bottom of the garden. Now she's finished and yesterday evening I watched her preening and foraging for food in the brief period before egg laying and incubation begins. While she was perched on the fence a wasp became caught in a spider's web within easy reach and the blackbird's attention immediately locked on to the frantically buzzing insect. I could almost hear her thinking 'should I eat it?'.
I've no idea what would happen if a blackbird tried to swallow as wasp. On a couple of occasions I've seen frogs swallow wasps that have landed on the pond surface for a drink. On both of those occasions the frog looked a bit pensive as the wasp went down its digestive tract but neither frog made any attempt to spit it out, or appeared to suffer any visible ill effects. They just settled back with their eyes level with the water surface and waited for something else edible to cross their field of vision.
The blackbird hesitated for a few seconds - maybe that warning colouration really does work - and during that time the wasp managed to struggle free and got away. So I still don't know what would happen next if a blackbird swallows a wasp.
For another potential life-and-death encounter with an unresolved outcome click here
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