Bee Hunting In South Devon!

I recently had some time away in South Devon, staying at a friends in Budleigh Salterton. After attending a solitary bee ID course a few months ago, I've become absolutely hooked on the group so I decided to see if I could find some Southern coastal species on this trip. 

Devon has a huge variety of solitary bee species and I was lucky enough to see quite a few, including this splendid female Black Mining Bee (Andrena pilipes), which was seen along the Budleigh Salterton seafront on bramble.

Like the Black Mining bee, the Cliff Mining bee (Andrena thoracica) usually nests in soft rock cliffs, which are plentiful around the Budleigh Salterton area. The female of the species are very distinctive, as they show a bright orange hair pile on the thorax and an almost hairless, black abdomen.

One of my favourite walks of the trip was from Budleigh, crossing over the River Otter and then walking a stretch of the South West Coast Path. The coast path route takes in some fantastic flowery cliff-top habitat which is fantastic for solitary bees, like this Davies Colletes (Colletes daviesanus), which I found feeding on Ragwort and Tansy.

The Clover Melitta bee (Melitta leporina) primarily feeds on...clover! It's a scarce bee where I'm from in Herefordshire and is more frequently encountered further South.

Sorry for the poor quality photo - it was very flighty and this was the best I could get! 

Another bee which I frequently saw along the SW Coast Path were Green-eyed Flower bees (Anthophora bimaculata) feeding on Ragwort. 

Both sexes are fairly distinctive as they both show green eyes and strongly banded abdomens.  

Nomad bees are a type of brood parasite 'cuckoo' bee; the females will enter the nest burrow of another bee species (often Andrena mining bees) and lay an egg in the unsealed wall of their host's nest cell. Once hatched, the Nomad grub will destroy the host's egg or grub and will then feed on the food store which the host bee will have collected - just like a chick of the Cuckoo.

A commonly seen Nomad species is the Painted Nomad bee (Nomada furcata) which can be told from most other Nomads by the single yellow spot on the the scutellum on the thorax.

The nationally scarce Blunthorn Nomad (Nomada flavopicta) was very plentiful on the Ragwort. They are the cuckoo of the Melitta bees, including the Clover Melitta mentioned earlier. 

NB 

All bees which are caught in pots are identified, photographed and released, a process which only takes a few minutes. 

Off to a new location, RSPB Aylesbeare Common, the grand total of a 12 minute drive away from where we were staying! 

It is a mixture of wet and dry heath and has a large variety of wildlife which can be seen. The heather was in full flower, making for fantastic views especially when I was on the higher points of the site.

One of the bees I was pleased to see at Aylesbeare was the Small Gorse Mining bee (Andrena ovatula), a medium sized mining bee which primarily feeds on...you've guessed it...gorse! 

Whilst I was identifying the Small Gorse Mining bee, I noticed a fairly large butterfly flitting by - a Grayling! It blended in perfectly as soon as it landed and I had to get really close before I could even see it! 

I was stumped on this one until a pair of very knowledgeable entomologists I know identified it as nymph of Alydus calcaratus, a member of the 'true' bugs.

It is quite a scarce insect and is found on dry heathland...just like Aylesbeare. 

At least 7 juvenile Dartford Warblers were seen flitting around in the gorse, following the adults and begging for food. 

Typically, the best species of the day was seen in the car park!!

It was a Small Shaggy bee (Panurgus calcaratus), which I noticed feeding on Cat's Ear just a feet away from where we had parked. The Small Shaggy bee is quite scarce, and is only really found in Southern areas where there is heathy grassland. 

My next location was The Maer, a very small dune system Local Nature Reserve right on Exmouth seafront. There was quite a lot of flowering Ragwort and Sea Holly, which were humming with bees and solitary wasps of all kinds.

One of the first species I saw on the reserve were Silvery Leafcutter bees (Megachile leachella), which had formed a small nesting aggregation in one of the small banks of sand. I was watching them for ages as they carried leaves into their little burrows, really fascinating to watch. 

The male Silvery Leafcutters show bright green eyes, a bit like the Green-eyed Flower bee mentioned earlier. 

The amount of Bee Wolves flying around during the day was astonishing - there must have been at least 10 at any one time. Many of the female Bee Wolves were carrying a Honey Bee beneath them, which they would have stung and paralyzed, to then take underground into a pre-dug burrow. A single egg is then laid on the bee, before the adult seals off the burrow with sand. After hatching, the larvae feed on the the store of Honey Bees, before emerging in Spring.

What fascinating creatures!

I was pleased to see quite a few of the scarce Large Sharp-tail Bee (Coelioxys conidea); a female is seen here. Like the Nomad bees, they are a brood parasite, with this species mainly parasitizing Coast Leafcutter bee (Megachile maritima).

There are 8 species of Coelioxys, with conidea being distinctive in the fact that it has pale, scale-like hairs on the base of the tibia; the middle section of the leg.

My favourite species from the trip was this female Black-thighed Epolus bee (Epolus varigatus) another cuckoo species which parasitize the broods of the Davie's Colletes bee. Whilst not as scarce as some of the other bees I saw during the trip, it is still quite uncommon, especially away from the coast.

That brings me to the end of this post and as you can see, I'm absolutely hooked on solitary bees!