More awakenings

 The early spring temperatures continued today. Ants were scouting out of their nests, sage leafhoppers were active and honeybees and droneflies enjoyed the Laurustinus. I waited until the bee and the dronefly visited the same inflorescence to take the above shot. I wonder if the Laurustinus flowers change colour when they are pollinated, in the same way as the Horse Chestnuts, white when fresh and turning red when already pollinated and stop producing nectar. 

We counted over 100 7-spot ladybirds in the garden. Some were eating aphids on the spurge.

The entrance of the burrow of a large Amaurobius spider under a garage roof. If you click to embiggen you can see the remains of a wasp a Harlequin and some wings I cannot identify, possibly from bluebottles.

A green shieldbug, Palomena prasina, on its dark winter attire came out of its overwintering refuge.

 Wolf spiders enjoyed the sun on the sunny side of the garden.

Loving the fruit

Our apple and plum trees fruit in August, and there are many bugs that love them, some quite surprisingly. Slugs, springtails, woodlice and fruit flies gorge on fallen apples, and comma and speckled wood butterflies feed on blackberries, but recently I noticed a few new characters in our produce. Seven spot ladybirds clustered on overripe plums (we were away and failed to collect them) and honeybees and wasps joined them. The common wasp (Vespula vulgaris) above, kept coming back to feed on a damaged spot on this fallen apple. Sweet, sweet fruit!

7 spot ladybirds and a wasp

honeybee in plum

Tree bees. 1. Holly.

These days I am looking up trying to find bees in trees. Insect pollinated trees can attract large numbers of bees, as they offer a highly concentrated resource: hundreds or thousands of flowers are present in the same spot. The drawback for the bee watcher is that, unless you carry binoculars, identification is not easy. There are two holly trees in my garden and I had noticed patrolling Red mining bees and feeding Bombus hypnorum in them before, but I could not take good shots. Today I found a holly hedge in bloom and I could get close to the bees that pollinate this tree. Holly flowers are small and inconspicuous and I have rarely noticed bees visiting them, but this little bush had many bees in it. Hollies are dioecious, which means that there are male and female trees, self-pollination is not possible and fertilisation requires insects visiting first a male tree and then a female tree. I am not sure if male holly flowers produce nectar as well as pollen. On the photo above a male Red Mining bee sits on the flowers of a male holly, its antennae covered on pollen.
In their Holly monograph, G. F. Peterken and P. S. Lloyd stated:

Entomophilous. Apis mellifera L. is the commonest insect visitor, but the following bees have been observed in southern England (O. W. Richards): Andrena wilkella Kby. (Andrenidae), Osmia rufa L. (Megachilidae) and Bombus lucorum L. (Apidae). B. lucorum and syrphid flies have been seen at the flowers in northern England. Nectar is secreted from tissue at the base of the ovary.

A honeybee visiting the flowers.

An Red Mining bee at the left of the flowers with scopa full of yellow holly pollen

Reference:

Peterken, G., & Lloyd, P. (1967). Ilex Aquifolium L. The Journal of Ecology, 55 (3) DOI: 10.2307/2258429