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.

Details for the AGM weekend programme have been published here

The 2014 BWARS AGM weekend will take place on 27 and 28 September at Oxford University Museum of Natural History.

Download the programme here

2014 AGM weekend programme

Andrena vaga, a widespread black and greyish-white mining bee in continental Europe, has recently been found at two locations on the south coast of England - at Dungeness, Kent and Brownwich Cliff, Hampshire. This species could easily be overlooked as it is similar to the widespread A. cineraria, (especially the males) so do be on the look out for this striking Andrena bee in the coming weeks, particularly in southern England.

A. vaga is completely grey haired across the top of the thorax, whereas A. cineraria has an… Read more

The South West Bees Report researched 23 species considered to be at risk in the UK, twenty are declining whilst three have become extinct.