Master beekeeper Meg Seymour, travels widely as seasonal bee inspector for FERA (Food & Environment Research Agency.) She is in charge of the bee project at Mendip Hospital Cemetery. Her talk “The Bee Species of Britain” will talk about the various types of bee, the contribution they make to the environment, the problems that face them, and how they can be helped.

Wells Museum (admission by side entrance) off Cathedral Green, Wells BA5 2UE. Doors open 19.00 for 19.30 start. Tea / coffee and biscuits served in the interval. Suitable for wheelchair users/limited mobility. … Read more

Species accounts for a further 59 species have been added to this website. These are the accounts published in Part 8 of the Provisional atlas of aculeate Hymenoptera of Britain and Ireland.

Species added are listed on the right.

Links to all the species accounts are here: https://www.bwars.com/index.php?q=species_list

Not strictly BWARS business here but a very worthwhile conference for anyone interested. Our friends in Bedfordshire are holding a conference entitled "The Neglected Insects of Bedfordshire" which deals with several groups (not aculeates). Among the speakers are several BWARS members and there is a very full programme.

Venue: The Forest Centre, Millennium Country Park, Marston Moretaine MK43 0PR on Saturday 15 November 2014.

Booking is essential and tickets are reasonably priced at £12

Contact details listed on … Read more

BWARS members Nigel Jones and Ian Cheeseborough collaborated on a 13 year project to discover and map the aculeates of Shropshire. The results are summarised in a new publication A provisional atlas of the bees, wasps and ants of Shropshire

Kent Field Club have published the Bumblebees of Kent by Nikki Gammans and Geoff Allan.  The 170 pages include more than 80 colour photographs and updated distribution maps and species profiles of the bumblebees of Kent.  This book aims to provide a comprehensive guide to bumblebee ecology and offers an inclusive introduction to their identification.  It discusses the importance of bumblebees, their decline and how we can help reverse this.

Dr Nikki Gammans is the Project Officer for… Read more

An Identification workshop will be held at Dinton Pastures

Details:

An introduction to the Hymenoptera aculeata

Saturday 11 April 2015

Mike Edwards & Graham Collins.

A ‘beginners’ day, it will start with an illustrated discussion of the main life-histories within group and then move to the microscopes for identification of these; using specimens held at Dinton Pastures, but also anything brought along by participants. This is a chance to get an understanding of what an aculeate is and to start getting to grips with the main taxonomic features. It is not likely that much species-level identification will be covered. Keys to help you get to the aculeate groups will be provided.

BWARS President, Michael Archer's key to Vespoid wasps has been published by the Royal Entomological Society. This new work contains a well illustrated key, detailed species accounts and colour images of many species.