Hunting wasps

There are few things reminding me more of the end of summer than hunting wasps. Today, a buzzing ball of fury fell on the pavement in front of me. A common wasp, Vespula vulgaris, holding on a male Eristalis dronefly, desperately trying to escape. The wasp held onto the dronefly's legs, chewing three of them and a wing off, and rendering the dronefly defenceless.

A loose leg and a wing are visible

I was amazed by the determination of the wasp, which was thrown about by the hoverfly while it was only holding by the hoverfly's abdomen.A very short clip shows moments after they landed.

March already

March always takes me by surprise. I realised today that the end of winter is within sight, and it hasn't really felt like a proper winter, as it has been very mild, with a scattering of frosts, although very windy and overcast. With the sun out today, a dronefly Eristalis tenax stirred up and alternatively visited the Laurustinus on the shade and sunbathed in the wall opposite. A pack of young wolf spiders enjoyed the sun too. I wandered around and realised the garden is ready for my favouring early spring invertebrate, Anthophora plumipes, the hairy footed flower bee. Males should be appearing by the end of this week, weather permitting. I photographed their favourite flowers at bee-eye view. I hope they don't make me wait too long.

Pardosa sp wolf spider sunbathing

White dead-nettle

Rosemary

Muscari

Narcissus tete-a-tete

Lungwort

Primroses

Spring at last!

The last couple of days have seen the temperatures finally rising over the freezing conditions we've had during March and early April. The lovely, milder, sunny weather we had today meant  I had many 'firsts' of the year. Until today this year, I had not seen a butterfly and I had only seen the occasional bees and bumblebees. Today Garden Ants, Lasius niger, were active in the garden, a clumsy female Dronefly enjoyed the sun and walked over the daffodil flowers feeding (above). Two male Anthophora plumipes patrolled around flowers, and even the first female of the year payed a short visit too. The males occasionally fed on wallflowers, hyacinths and wild primroses.
I saw my first butterfly of the year today, a Small Tortoiseshell, unfortunately, could get no photos, as my cat found her before me and chased her away.

This queen wasp, Vespula vulgaris, also first of the year, got in the conservatory.

A Tegenaria with its egg sac on a stilt. It is under the lid of the water butt, so I guess the photo is upside down

A male Anthophora plumipes rests for a few seconds on foxglove leaves.

My cat becomes quite the entomologist when flying insects start to appear. She often alerts me of insects in the garden, but also disturbs them when they try to feed, to my annoyance! Later in the year, she becomes disinterested, and I can relax and watch insects at my leisure.

Spring unfurling

 We rose to quasi tropical temperatures for mid February today, reaching 15.5 oC in this clear sunny day. Many overwintering bugs woke up, stretched and started buzzing about. Tens, hundreds of 7 spot ladybirds everywhere, coming out from folded, dried up leaves and positioning themselves on sunny spots. I disturbed a green caterpillar while gardening and woodlice were also active.
 The garden is still very sparse in the flower front. Today the first tete-a-tete daffodil opened and there are a few primroses. That is a problem if you rely on nectar and pollen for energy. Two droneflies (Eristalis tenax) including the female on the top shot fed on honeydew on the ivy. Notice its long, dark proboscis licking the leaf and the spots of honeydew on the leaf on the foreground. Later one of them flew to the Lauristinus, which is now in full bloom, where it joined a honeybee and another early hoverfly species (Meliscaeva auricollis).  Marmalade flies (Episyrphus balteatus) were also about.

Dronefly on Laurustinus

A dead queen wasp

Marmalade hoverfly, Episyrphus balteatus

The hoverfly Meliscaeva auricollis also in Laurustinus

Dronefly portrait

I photographed this female dronefly, Eristalis tenax, sunbathing on the Phlomis bush. I like the soft green of the leaves and I played with the depth of field to make the background blurry. If you download the large version of the photo you can see yellow pollen on the fly's legs and some has transferred to the leaves. The only flowers nearby were a few crocuses, so I guess the dronefly had been feeding on them before.

Deceitful drone-flies

Drone-fly

Honey bee

Today we had a beautiful springy afternoon, a brief respite in this cold winter. I saw a drone-fly, Eristalis tenax, feeding on a clump of snowdrops. Drone-flies are a textbook example of Batesian mimicry: a harmless species resembling a stinging one so that predators are deceived and avoid it. Adult drone-flies are hover-flies that resemble honeybees in color, size and even in their flight behaviour. As adults they also feed on flowers - even the same species - making the similarity very precise. But, is there any evidence that predators actually avoid drone-flies mistaking them for bees? In a clever experiment Golding and colleagues actually investigated this using humans - biology university students and schoolchildren. They tested how good they were telling bees, bumblebees and wasps apart, and from their mimic hover-flies using picture plates and questionnaires. Their results show that humans were generally bad taxonomists, as half of the students could not identify a bee, even when they were biology students!. However, the study concluded that more people thought that the mimics would sting than control flies (not resembling bees, wasps or bumblebees), but fewer people thought the mimics would sting than the actual hymenopteran models. This shows that the mimicry works although is not completely effective. An interesting result was that students who had been previously stung were better at identifying the hymenopterans as stinging and were better at telling wasps, bees and bumblebees apart, indicating that experience is an important factor. The study provides the first experimental evidence that mimicry in drone-flies is effective and might help them avoid predation, not only by humans trying to swat or spray them, but by their natural bird predators.
 The students in the previous study were asked to look at small photos of flies and bees for a short period of time, just like any predator who has just seconds to decide if to snatch the insect or let it go. A close up examination of the drone-fly however, easily reveals its nature. Its antennae are quite short compared with the honey-bee, it has got a single pair of wings and typical large fly eyes, also, it lacks polled baskets on the rear legs.