What have our furry friends been up to?
First England – then the world; the unstoppable tree bumblebee!
Regular readers will be familiar with the tree bumblebee, a species from mainland Europe which colonized the south of Britain in 2001. BBCT and the Bees, Wasps and Ants Recording Society have been trying to track the northwards progress of this new bumblebee, which in 2010 was approaching the Scottish border. Now it seems the story has taken a new twist; this intrepid bee has turned up in Iceland.
The arrival and establishment of the tree bumblebees in Iceland is remarkable. How on earth did they manage to cross over 400 miles of the chilly north Atlantic to get there? This is far further than a bumblebee can fly without refuelling so it seems they must have either hitched a ride on a ferry or perhaps been deliberately imported on a plane. The question now is where next for the tree bumblebee? (Photo: Erling Ólafsson).
Link to BBCT:- http://www.bumblebeeconservation.org.uk/
Link to BBCT:- http://www.bumblebeeconservation.org.uk/
I identified it first in my own garden (with the help of Linda) and then in three other gardens in Calderdale. At each place they were feeding from Cotoneaster flowers except one where they were using a garden species of Geranium.
ReplyDeleteI saw them going in an unused nestbox, but have yet to clean it out to check if they built a nest.