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Submitted by Stuart Roberts on ,

A BENHS beginners day led by Mike Edwards (Midhurst). The day will start with an illustrated discussion of the natural history and morphology of these wasps and then move to the microscopes for identification; using specimens held at Dinton Pastures, but also anything brought along by participants. This is a chance to gain an understanding of these cosmopolitan wasps and to start getting to grips with the main taxonomic features. RES have recently published (2014) - The Vespoid Wasps Vol. 6 Part 6 M.E. Archer; bringing a copy would be advantageous.

The workshop… Read more

Submitted by Nigel Jones on ,

Today (19th January 2016) I saw my first female Podalonia hirsuta basking on a sunny exposure. It's not unprecedented to see them in January - they have been recorded in every month of the year in Dorset - but this is my earliest record by four days.
This was a female making an early excursion from hibernation (males don't hibernate and won't appear until the summer) and she was taking full advantage of warm sunshine and a south-facing exposure. This was despite it having been the coldest night of the winter so far and there being frost all around and a thin layer of ice on the… Read more

Submitted by Stuart Roberts on ,

The Bumblebee Conservation Trust announces an intermediate course to look at all the identification of all the  UK bumblebee species, and a detailed description of their ecology, life cycle and anatomy. Attendees will be assumed to be able to identify competently the "Big Seven"

The course costs £10 per head (includes tea and coffee) and run from 10.30 - 15.00

To book your place contact Dr. Nikki Gammans on nikki.gammans@bumblebeeconservation or telephone

RSPB Dungeness on 01797 320588

Booking essential to guarantee a place

All… Read more

Submitted by Stuart Roberts on ,

The Bumblebee Conservation Trust announces a beginners course to introduce you to the world of bumblebees and their ecology, lifecycle and conservation.

The course costs £10 per head (includes tea and coffee) and run from 10.30 - 15.00

To book your place contact Dr. Nikki Gammans on nikki.gammans@bumblebeeconservation or telephone RSPB Dungeness on 01797 320588

Booking essential to guarantee a place

 

All proceeds to the short-haired bumblebee project

Submitted by Nigel Jones on ,

A superbly illustrated key to the Chrysididae of the Nordic and Baltic countries (in English) is available as a free download. It should provide a very useful aid to identifying wasps in the family Chrysididae. The key includes all the British mainland species apart from Chrysis rutiliventris* . It can be downloaded here

* C. vanlithi - treated as a subspecies of C. rutiliventris by some authors - is included in the key.

Submitted by Nigel Jones on ,
Submitted by Nigel Jones on ,
Submitted by Nigel Jones on ,

The NBN are running a short project seeking to classify recorder motivations, and understand what support different recorders prefer. They're using both questionnaires and interviews, and need as wide a range of responses as possible to cover the diversity of circumstances and perspectives. If you collect data from the environment and would like to be included, further details are here:

 

http://www.nbn.org.uk/News/Latest-news/Recorder-motivation-internship-we-re-… Read more

Submitted by Nigel Jones on ,

A significant leap north west for Colletes hederae is apparent, with the discovery of a well established population around Llandudno in North Wales, on 8 October. A large nest aggregation was found on Little Orme as well as individuals at ivy and nesting in a roadside verge in nearby Llandudno. The latest map includes these new records.
Latest Map

Submitted by Nigel Jones on ,

This note from John vanBreda relates to an issue whereby a single image of a Bombus (see screengrab below) was displaying in the species gallery outside the taxonomic hierarchy:

That had me confused for a while as well. Here’s how I found it. If you click on Content management > Taxonomy > List, this shows you the “taxonomies” that are  loaded into Drupal. These are taxonomies in the linguistic sense not biological – i.e. hierarchies of terms, but in our case we of course use one to drive the hierarchy of the Species gallery tool.

Click on “list terms… Read more