Country diary: the cuckoo in the mining bee's nest

Lower Benefield, Northamptonshire: When the two eggs hatch, the nomad bee larva's sickle-shaped jaws make short work of the mining bee larvaOur delayed spring, when it arrived, came in a sudden burst. Each insect species has a calendar slot for emerging from hibernation. For many bees good timing ensures that they emerge when their favourite flowers are opening. For the chocolate mining bee (Andrena scotica), a large, shiny, dark bee that nests in Benefield lawns and banks, success is awaking when the blackthorn blossom bursts. The thaw triggered an explosion of flowers and insects that in warmer years would have emerged in March and early April, all arrived at once. My car windscreen accrued a sparse smattering of ex-insect life, and others reported similar. It is odd to celebrate pointless high-speed fatalities, but they represent an echo of the richer aerial plankton of past decades, and thereby a flicker of hope for the future. Continue reading...