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Saving the Bumblebee from Jamie-Lee Loughlin on Vimeo.

So the experience of dealing with Polish people and their great moustaches is over (read post here) and it is back to the UK. It looked like the weather would hold and so Jo and I decided to pop over to RHS Wisley, only about half an hour from us so fantastic. What a lovely day and made even more so as we went to areas of the garden that we hadn’t been to before. These included a fantastic tree that is quite rare……… Read the rest of this entry »

It is slightly damaging to the legitimacy of this blog that I have been writing for several months now and I have notonce mentioned the amazing alternative to the honey bee, the solitary bee. Now firstly, I do have to point out that this does not mean that these are the bees that no one likes and therefore they disappear off on their own, ostracised from society; though it does that to be said that honey bees and bumble bees are known as “Social Bees”…….I will leave that decision up to you!  The solitary bees are just genetically predisposed to act in this sort of manner but again, as with most topics in life, it isn’t black and white, there are many types of solitary bee and not all are purely solitary. There is a complete spectrum ranging from the huge numbers of honey bees down to the solitary bees that operate on their own.

Anyway, I raise this important subject as I have decided that during this first year, despite the fact that it will not actually produce me any honey, I need to build a solitary bee house (there is another difference, they are described as houses and not hives; such luxury they have!) to truly live the experience of being a beekeeper. So what actually are this little insects and how are they different? Read the rest of this entry »