A good guide to Irish Bumblebees??

Birdnuts

Anyone know of one?? - There one of my favorite types of wildlife for so many reasons and I'd loved to get to know them better:)

wgsten

I have been looking for guides to Irish Bumblebees and other Irish insects, as yet i have not found any. Here is a photo of the Red tailed Bumblebee (bombus lapidarius) an easy one to identify.



wgsten
http://www.irishflyfisher.ie/

Sid_Justice

http://www.tcd.ie/Zoology/research/Bees/

Ptotty

Lovely pic

Mothman

3rd from bottom on British Wildlife Publishing

And wgsten, how do you know this red tail isn't Bombus rupestris?

Yi Harr

Mothman wrote: »

3rd from bottom on British Wildlife Publishing

+1 for that book, its very informative. Managed to find one by Folens in Chapters (2nd hand) a couple of months ago too.

wgsten

And wgsten, how do you know this red tail isn't Bombus rupestris?[/QUOTE]

I was going by the red colour which on lapidarius is more darker than on rupestris and also its size. It is my amateur opinion which is always open to correction.
wgsten
http://www.irishflyfisher.ie/

Birdnuts

Thanx folks for all the usefull info folks:)

littlebug

Sid_Justice wrote: »

http://www.tcd.ie/Zoology/research/Bees/

I just came across this myself. On Aran last weekend the place was just humming with bees. I didn't realise that the islands have their very own bumble bombus muscorum var. allenellus . Right that's next weekends "project" sorted.... to find and photograph the Aran bee

Birdnuts

littlebug wrote: »

I just came across this myself. On Aran last weekend the place was just humming with bees. I didn't realise that the islands have their very own bumble bombus muscorum var. allenellus . Right that's next weekends "project" sorted.... to find and photograph the Aran bee

I've had the pleasure of observing the very rare all yellow Machair Grassland bumble-bee in Erris Co. Mayo a few years ago.:D

PS: Please post your photos here if you find the Aran BB:)

Jim Martin

The National Biodiversity Data Centre have just published a very useful little plastic pocket guide for €3 - email: info@biodiversityireland.ie

V Bull

Looking for help with the ID of this Bumblebee please, there were a good few of them around yesterday in the ECNR Blackditch Wood..

Traonach

Birdnuts wrote: »

I've had the pleasure of observing the very rare all yellow Machair Grassland bumble-bee in Erris Co. Mayo a few years ago.:D

PS: Please post your photos here if you find the Aran BB:)

I presume you mean the Great yellow Bumblebee.

Half-cocked

Not a Bumblebee, but can anyone ID this? I think it might be a Drone Fly?

Mothman

Half-cocked wrote: »

Not a Bumblebee, but can anyone ID this? I think it might be a Drone Fly?

As you say, not a Bee, but a Hoverfly of which Drone Fly=Eristalis tenax is one. This is not tenax but the closely related Eristalis pertinax. The main difference is leg colour. Your pic shows pale front legs, they are dark in tenax.
I've a book on Hoverflies!

doctor evil

I rescued a femal Bombus Lapidarius from inside the window yesterday, she was just over a two euro coin in size!

I love bees!

I remember about two summers ago intending to empty and reuse a ceramic pot complete with dry soil and a dead plant. I noticed a tunnel in the soil so I kept an on eye on it while doing other and eventually a miner bumblebee came along!

fryup

when a bubble bee is struggling along the ground is it about to die? or taking a rest?

should it be left alone or helped?

mr.wiggle

fryup wrote: »

when a bubble bee is struggling along the ground is it about to die? or taking a rest?

should it be left alone or helped?

Years ago saw a bit about giving bees a bit of help by putting some honey/jam or sugarwater (2tsp sugar,1tsp water) , next to them. Have done it a few times myself over the years. Always get a kick when the bee takes off. Just make sure you feed it out of the wind, don't want the bee getting stuck in the feed.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1205781/Busy-bees-buzz-energy-drinks-prescribed-boost-flagging-activity-levels.html


http://www.rspb.org.uk/news/details.aspx?id=tcm:9-224256

doctor evil

Not a good idea to feed a bee honey that is not from its own hive as it can contain pathogens that can affect the bee.

iliketeaandcake

What are you meant to do when you find a queen bumblebee emerging to keep it out of danger?

The dog was going mental today because there was a large bee in the kitchen on the floor - I've no idea how it got there so I think he may have brought it in from the garden. He has done this before with wasps without harming them, he has a strange affection for them I think. Anyway, I put the bee under a glass with a bit of cardboard under it and it's now out of harms way. But I don't know what to do with it other than leave it out into the garden and hope it wakes up a bit.

I'm fairly sure it's a queen from the way it's acting and its size. It looks like it is doing little leg raises and trying to get itself going - in between long periods of not moving. I just want to give it a chance to take off. A couple of weeks ago there was another one out in the yard struggling along. I left it to its own devices but unfortunately it didn't get going.

I live in the middle of the city in Cork so I don't know how abundant they are here - and from looking at pictures on the net I can't tell what type it is - probably a Bombus Terrestrius but it's sort of 'fatter' looking and her tail is slightly ginger compared to the really fluffy white tails I would often see around the country side.

It has been in the jar for a couple of hours now so I will probably put it outside under a carton with some holes on it and hope she makes her way off.. I hope I don't sound like an idiot, it's just so rarely you see them around!!

bellaf

You might want to check out
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.biodiversityireland.bumblebee

Hope you have an android phone.

iliketeaandcake

I saw that app and thought it looked interesting, I don't have an android phone though!
To conclude my story of the bee, I put it in a small empty cardboard carton outside the garden shed, hoping it would make it's way off to the park eventually. It was buzzing like mad when I placed her in the box so I was optimistic. The shed doesn't get used much so if it did end up living there it wouldn't have been too inconvenient. I went out the next day and the bee had died though
However, we found two more bees - definitely queens - in the house yesterday all dried up and lifeless. So I think that there may be a few of them after hibernating in the house over the winter and they are only emerging now. Hopefully some of them will survive and make their homes elsewhere!
I'm still looking for advice about what you're meant to do with them. I looked on a few websites but it was mostly information on the different species.