Steven Falk has been developing a major photo resource on Flickr, this aims to provide numerous images and notes to help users determine British bee species. A description of the resource and instructions for using it can be downloaded here
Steven Falk's Review of the Scarce and Threatened Bees, Wasp and Ants of Great Britain, published in 1991, and long out of print, can now be downloaded at:
http://jncc.defra.gov.uk/pdf/Pub91_Review_of_threatened_bees_wasps_ants_PRINT.pdf
Two new book reviews - The Natural History of Bees and Gardening for Butterflies (2013), Bees and other beneficial insects (2010) have been added to the Book Reviews section
Update: 11 October 2013
On the eastern side of the country, Colletes hederae has now been sighted in north Norfolk, even further north than the Shrewsbury sighting below. Latest map here.
Update: 10 October 2013
This is an update to an existing news item.
Colletes hederae in south Staffordshire. 27 Sept 2013
Photo: Bex Cartwright
Female C. hederae in Shrewsbury.
Photo: Nigel Jones
Invertebrates and us - the good, the bad and the ugly is the title of a series of lectures organised by the Ecology and Conservation Studies Society. This includes two aculeate themed lectures.
Download the programme here
Colletes hederae is now flying in some areas. Send your records to BWARS' annual monitoring project
See the diary entry at: Andrena identification workshop
BWARS.com can now embed videos in its species account pages. We have added videos of Oxybelus uniglumis, showing a female around her nest burrow, then bringing in prey - a fly impaled upon its sting; and Osmia bicornis females collecting mud.
BWARS would welcome further videos ilustrating behaviour of species. Videos should be of reasonable quality. Please contact the web managers if you have material you can contribute.
Website Managers:
BWARS has launched an online survey for Anthidium manicatum ("wool carder bee") here
Use this format:
For example for the page: https://www.bwars.com/index.php?q=bee/apidae/anthophora-plumipes
The citation should be:
Bees, Wasps & Ants Recording Society, 2013. Anthophora plumipes. https://www.bwars.com/index.php?q=bee/apidae/anthophora-plumipes. [Accessed Date (style 1st January 2013)]
Which would look like this:
