BWARS and its members participate in a range of projects. Projects are many and varied, from single person observational work to wide ranging collaborative work across international boundaries. A selection of this work is described here.
BWARS is collaborating with Dr Jakub Straka of the Aculeate Research Group, Charles University, PRAGUE in providing specimens of Anthophora plumipes for his extended study into understanding the relationships between the populations of the bee in Japan and Europe. The Prague team also hopes to see if there is any genetic diversification between the Japanese populations and those in the USA (which are derived from Japanese stock).
By including the distinctive British material in this work it is hoped that information can be… Read more
Bees in Britain - Chapter 5 - The Genera
We're sure you'll agree that the updated website is a huge improvement on our old website. A colossal amount of volunteer effort has gone into creating the hundreds of pages you'll find here - adding thousands of photographs, editing and proof reading lots and lots of text. Inevitably, errors will have crept in (we've already found quite a few). So, if you spot anything wrong, no matter how small, please do email one of the website managers and tell us about it. We'll try to correct things as quickly as possible.
The genus Pemphredon has more than its fair share of synonyms amongst its species and the fauna of Great Britain and Ireland has several species with more than their 'fair share' of these. Pemphredon lethifer may be readily bred from nests in the pith of old bramble stems. The nest architecture is distinctive, a spiral tunnel with cells 'dropping off the spiral parallel to the outside of the stem at intervals. However, the resulting adults are confusingly varied, both in size and finer details of the ratios of different body parts. This small-scale variability has given rise to a wide… Read more
To celebrate the launch of its new website, BWARS is extremely pleased to offer the previously unpublished text for Bees of Britain as a free download. This provides the first significant work about Britain's Bees since 1896! It will be an essential aid to anyone wishing to study native bees in Britain and further afield.
Our thanks go to members Robin Williams, Mike Edwards and the team of authors for working so tirelessly to complete this important project.
… Read moreThe photographs here are kindly provided by Villu Soon. They show the sculpture of the thorax of the four UK species. These photos should help to clarify the descriptions given in Morgan (1984).
