Rushmere Bee Bank

Since our first Covid lockdown of 2020, I have been monitoring a natural bee bank in Rushmere CP. When I first discovered it (whilst walking to my local Dragonfly NR) I knew nothing about bees and wasps but it gave me some welcome distraction in those difficult days of Covid. The interactions that I observed between the various species inhabiting the bank as a nesting site introduced me to aspects of these fascinating creatures’ lives of which I was completely unaware. Now I know a little but not very much compared to the experts at BWARS, who are the folks that I need to rely upon for most of my identifications.

Because I built up a good selection of species on this one bank, I wanted to keep a record of their biodiversity, hence this dedicated page. The main protagonists are bees and wasps but there are other species which share their habitat, either having an impact upon them or being impacted by them. There are many interactions between various of the species, where “interaction” means parasitizing or preying on each other. Wasps are predatory but many of the bees, those I refer to as the benign bees, are simply trying to nest and reproduce. There is, though, a varied collection of kleptoparasitic bees.

Species counts so far: