BWARS AGM and Members’ Day took place on Sunday 24th October 2021 from 10:00 am

Meeting was held over Zoom

AGM Agenda

There will be the opportunity to ask short questions via the Chat function on Zoom.

Voting will take place ‘en bloc’ at the end of each section, via Zoom poll. The poll question will read: ‘On the motion before us, do you agree?’ and the options will be ‘yes’, ‘no’, ‘abstain’.

1. Introduction to Tanyptera 10:00 Leanna Dixon will introduce the Tanyptera project and explain housekeeping in terms of Zoom.
2. Welcome. The… Read more

The primarily tropical genus Strumigenys Smith 1860 (Formicidae: Myrmicinae) are minute predators with a growing history of global introductions but rarely able to establish in temperate zones outside of heated infrastructures. The Australasian Strumigenys perplexa has been recently found in Guernsey in outdoor locations. You can read full details here Matt Hamer et al 2021

Flying Ant Days - please enter your observations here Enter data page

Scientists from the University of Leeds are looking for assistence in collecting data on where and when "flying ant days occur". Please help by completing an online form at the link above. You can read more about this BioDAR Project to the right.

A crib sheet by Steven Falk to aid the identification of bumblebees with bands and red tails (i.e excluding those with unbanded black bodies and red tails) - 2021

A crib sheet by Steven Falk to aid in the identification of female cuckoo bumblebees - 2021

The eusocial wasp Polistes biglumis was formerly added to the British list on the basis of several females and males present in July to September 2020 at a country park on the Kent coast (Hazlehurst, 2020). The number present implied at least one nest. It is a larger species than other Polistes - queens can reach a length of up to 16 millimeters, worker up to 14 millimeters.

Species pages have been created for Polistes nimpha and Pemphredon fabricii. Both were added to the British list in 2021.

Polistes nimpha is a primitively eusocial species with poorly-differentiated queens,

Added to the British mainland list by Falk and George 2021 (Falk, S.J. and George, S. 2021. Polistes nimpha (Hymenoptera: Vespidae) Another Paper Wasp New to Britain. British Journal of Entomology and Natural History. 34: 1.

Download the paper adding Polistes nimpha to the British list below:

Added to the British list by Falk & Early 2021 (Falk, S.J. & Early, J. 2021 Pemphredon fabricii (Hymenoptera: Crabronidae) New to Britain. British Journal of Entomology and Natural History: 34: 1.

Download the paper introducing this species to the British list below. Includes a revised key to British Pemphredon species.

This guide uses a combination of size, colour pattern and biological information to provide an identification key of 14 fairly distinctive species of solitary bees known
from Scotland. The key applies to female bees only: their male counterparts are often much harder to identify and are not discussed.  Most of the bees in the key should also be identifiable from good close-up photographs as long as their critical features are visible.