First solitary bees of 2024 🐝

Four years ago I was starting a weekly Macro Monday photoblog as we entered into the Covid-19 restrictions. Now I reflect on how that extra time helped me to post more regularly on here, and just how hard I find that now in the post-pandemic lifescape.

I’ve not got into macro mode proper yet this year, but a few recent sightings and reasonable phone pics have provided some inspiration.

On Saturday 16th March my partner was investigating the state of some of the potted plants in our garden when she found a small bee. I swooped in and enticed it onto my fingertip. It was a red mason bee, the first one I had seen this year.

I placed the little mason bee among some mutant AI primroses that flower weekly throughout the year. Later that evening as we walked out I somehow managed to spot another mason bee sat on the concrete path, looking wet and cold. I picked the bee up and put it into a bonsai tree pot and hid it under a leaf.

The next morning I found it was still there but looking altogether more wet and cold, so again I gave it a ride to the warmer side of the house and back to the primroses.

Then on Monday morning I passed our latest bee hotel installation and saw a hairy-footed flower bee (one of the first bees of the spring) undertaking a session of weather-watching from the cover of a larger bamboo stem.

It’s not often you find these characterful bees stationary, they’re usually zipping around at max speed.

Later, I found yet another red mason bee looking cold and damp on the concrete path. Again, I picked it up and put it on the warmer side of the house.

I’m wondering if this is the same bee every time or if perhaps there are a number of these bees emerging from the old mortar of the exposed side of my house, and that the weather isn’t quite right for them yet.

One animal that I also keep finding on the concrete path alongside the house is Socks the fox. Whether she has several other little foxes in tow will be known soon enough.

Thanks for reading.