Bees, rudbeckia and buying cheap

click photos to enlarge
An executive decision was taken in the Boughen household the other day. When it comes to buying flower seeds next year we are going to ignore the specialist suppliers and their higher priced, exclusive ranges endorsed by famous gardeners, and stick to the cheap and cheerful varieties. In truth we've never bought many "special" flower seeds, but this year they've proved a disaster, either featuring blooms that are not the colour advertised, producing far fewer plants than is reasonable from the number of seeds in the packet, or simply failing completely. We have not been happy!

In contrast, the inexpensive flower seeds that we bought have been very successful, doing exactly what it says on the packet, and filling the areas of our borders reserved for annuals with banks of colour. The rudbeckia, in particular, have been magnificent. A packet of seeds that cost a few pence, containing a mixture of different varieties in the colour range brown/orange/yellow has drawn me and my camera on a number of occasions. They did so again a few days ago when the wind had dropped, the sky was bright (but not sunny), and the blooms were at their glowing best.

I took several shots of the flower heads, of which the second image is probably the best. It uses a composition that I'm fond of, namely filling most of the frame with a single head (off centre), and making sure the remainder of the image has out-of-focus heads. However, once again the presence of bees led me to come away from my task with another image of the busy little workers, because as soon as I lined up a shot, as often as not one landed on the flower and began collecting pollen. This particular bee interested me because it looked like it was wearing a fur coat that was getting a good dusting of the yellow stuff. I'm aware that there are a number of different kinds of bees that venture into gardens: some I recognise, but this one I didn't.

photographs & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35 macro (70mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/100 (400)
ISO: 400
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

The birds and the bees

click photo to enlarge
Think of the word "habitat" in the context of the UK and you picture either Terence Conran's furnishing store or the manifold wild places, the mountain tops, moorland, forests and woods, meadows, sea cliffs, lakes, saltmarsh, chalk downs, farmland, and so on. What doesn't immediately spring to mind are the suburban gardens, so lovingly tended by their owners, that ring our cities and large towns. Yet, in terms of our bird population, this is one of the most important and productive habitats of these islands. Many of the birds that are declining on farmland due to the intensification of agriculture are finding a home there, as are birds that previously lived in woodland and its fringes. Whilst it is true that some species such as the house sparrow and starling are declining, even in towns and cities, the green woodpecker, dunnock, long-tailed tits, carrion crow and sparrow hawk are typical of those increasing in numbers because of the richness of these urban oases.

Today comes the news that suburban gardeners may also be the people who slow, halt or reverse the downturn in our bee population. The varroa mite caused a decline of 30% in the national honey bee population last year, and this year the percentage drop looks to be in the high teens or low twenties. However, there has been a big increase in the number of suburban gardeners buying hives in order to make honey. They account for most of the recent 3,000 increase in the membership of the British Beekeepers' Association which now stands at 14,500. A new, plastic beehive, and the promotion of the hobby by its manufacturer, has also played its part. Who knows, if this trend continues, perhaps that most colourful of birds, the bee-eater (Merops apiaster) will start to make more than its presnt handful of appearances in our country!

Today's photograph shows one of the many bees that are currently buzzing around my lavender. As I got closer than usual to take my photograph I was surprised to see the variety in the appearance of the bees in my garden, and made a mental note to find out more about this interesting insect.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 150mm (300mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 400
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Bees and the end of mankind

click photo to enlarge

If you were to survey people on your local high street about the possible causes of the next devastation of mankind I suppose nuclear war, drought, climate change and disease might cluster around the top of any list drawn up from the results. The decline in the honey bee population would, however, be unlikely to appear at all. And yet, for the past two years a disease, about which little is known, has devastated the bees of Europe and the United States. And, since about a third of our diet comes from insect-pollinated plants, with eighty percent of that pollination done by honey bees, then perhaps we ought to be working as hard to solve this problem as we are the proliferation of nuclear weapons or the amount of carbon we pump into the atmosphere. However, before you start ordering hives and stock-piling food, you should know that Professor Francis Ratnieks, of Sussex University is a little more relaxed about the prospect of mankind's decline being precipitated by a famine that follows the demise of the honey bee. He sees the present drop in numbers as probably due to climate change or disease, and feels it's unlikely that bees will disappear entirely.

I was reminded of the two articles that provided me with this information when I was photographing some old-fashioned geraniums (sometimes called cranesbill) in my garden. The purple flowers were in full bloom, and invited an image to capture their beauty. As I framed this flower head a bee landed on it, and then did something most unusual. Instead of gathering pollen and storing it in the sacs on its legs it folded back a petal and investigated the back of the bloom! Was it deranged? Or diseased? Had it lost the ability to find pollen? Or had it lost its marbles? Was I seeing evidence of the affliction that is causing so much concern amongst the bee-keeping fraternity? But then, apparently satisfied that there was nothing of interest behind the petals, it moved on to the next flower head and did what all good bees do - it loaded up with the yellow stuff! However, I did get a shot of this interesting bee behaviour. So, if you read that a learned professor has discovered that the decline in bee numbers is due to them wasting time searching the backs of flowers, rather than getting straight down to business, remember that you read it here first!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm macro (70mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 200
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On