Bees

The mild weather continues here in Falmouth, Cornwall and over the last few days bumblebees have been active in the garden whenever the sun has managed to find a gap in the rain clouds.

This Buff-tailed Bumblebee (Bombus terrestris) was busy, seen visiting Grevilleas, a late-flowering plant native to Australia known as ‘Spider flower‘, and judging by its swollen pollen sacks was managing to find them quite productive.

Insight into Buff-tailed Bumblebee (Bombus terrestris): common to much of the UK, like many bees they can suffer during mild winters when they emerge prematurely from hibernation to search for food. With few flowers out the bees use up valuable energy reserves in their search for pollen and may starve or be further weakened by parasites.