2015 AGM - Oxford University Natural History Museum, Saturday & Sunday 17 - 18 October
The provisional programme of workshops and talks is available for download here
As usual there has been a steady stream of requests for identifications of aculeates, often from photographs. Helping new people to understand how to name the insects in this group, what to look for, whether the insect even is an aculeate, is an important part of the support BWARS offers. Much of this support is through the workshops held at various venues around the country.
Buglife have produced a report detailing the results of a survey for seven bee species in south west England.
The report presents the findings of the project’s first ground-truthing surveys from May to August 2014. The objectives of these surveys were:
BWARS members Mike Edwards and Jeremy Early have collaborated with Scottish Natural Heritage to produce a guide to some of the common and more readily identified bees of Scotland. The guide can be downloaded here
BWARS member Ian Tew has been busy upoading some 230 images of bees and wasps in 23 genera, significantly improving our online image collection. Most of the images were taken in south Wales. View the images in the species accounts.
Stuart Roberts has added a a new map showing the results of the 2014 monitoring project for Bombus hypnorum. This includes 3,290 lines of data. 224 new dots have been added to the map in 2014, which represents a more than a 20% increase over 2013.
A number of excellent videos showing behavioural aspects of various aculeates have been added to the species accounts.
Many thanks to John Walters and Vivian Russell for providing the video sequences.
The new video sequences can be viewed on the following pages:
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
Anteon fulviventre
Anteon jurineanum
Anteon pubicorne
Lasius flavus
Myrmica karavajevi
Myrmica specioides
Stenamma debile
Stenamma westwoodii
Priocnemis agilis
Priocnemis cordivalvata
Priocnemis exaltata
Priocnemis fennica
Trypoxylon attenuatum
Trypoxylon clavicerum
Trypoxylon figulus
Trypoxylon medium
Trypoxylon minus
Crossocerus palmipes
Pemphredon lugubris
Pemphredon austriaca
Pemphredon inornata
Pemphredon lethifer
Pemphredon morio
Hylaeus communis
Hylaeus signatus
Andrena helvola
Andrena synadelpha
Andrena varians
Andrena trimmerana
Andrena ruficrus
Andrena nigriceps
Andrena bimaculata
Andrena nigrospina
Andrena pilipes
Andrena fulvago
Andrena humilis
Andrena niveata
Andrena ovatula
Andrena similis
Andrena wilkella
Lasioglossum parvulum
Lasioglossum punctatissimum
Sphecodes pellucidus
Sphecodes puncticeps
Dufourea halictula
Dufourea minuta
Megachile centuncularis
Megachile ligniseca
Megachile versicolor
Megachile willughbiella
Coelioxys elongata
Coelioxys inermis
Coelioxys mandibularis
Coelioxys rufescens
Nomada fulvicornis
Nomada integra
Nomada marshamella
Nomada panzeri
Nomada striata
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.
