Where are the Bees Wasps Flies and Nats

[JayCeeDee]

There’s been a huge increase in wasp prescense and activity over the last few days. What with the wife being allergic to wasp stings that’s been a right royal PITA. ?It falls on me to gently persuade them to exit via the window they came in by, or if that fails the hand held Dyson pulls them in gently and can then be opened outside for them to escape once that dizzy feeling has gone!!?

[Richard]

The house at the end of the adjacent road has a large fig tree, the figs are now ripe and mushy so fall from the tree with their mushy flesh held in with a tough skin. The husky values these are prizes to bring home… except that most of the windfalls now contain several foraging wasps. So I have a right battle to kick the figs away before we have a right incident between dog and fig chasing husky, to take care. The wasps are about and some no doubt are planning war, less risk to my dangerously allergic wife who is confined to the house for the moment as it is too painful to walk due to neuropathy from her treatment. Two weeks ago I offered to get a folding wheel chair to use till the effects hopefully improve, but the offer was very firmly declined.

There are still masses of butterflies in the field, happily they are less risky.

[The Duke]

I’ve found them. There in Spain. For the first time ever I’ve hade to by some proper repellent with deat in it. It’s nasty stuff, but the cheaper ‘greener’ stuff just wasn’t working.

Cost me €7.50 from the chemist. And it’s money well spent. Though you need to put it on in a well ventilated space. It chokes you good.

[PlaneMan]

The bees are in my mother’s garden, feasting on the lavender plants.

 

 

[D-Dan]

As for wasps, or possibly more accurately (I hope) those things that look like wasps, but aren’t, and aren’t stingy, try my kitchen. I keep finding 1 or 2 per day, with the window having been closed for three weeks. Most seem very sluggish. Got a lively one last night, but it’s been hoovered up, now.

Arch Linux, on a Ryzen 7 1800X, 32 GB, 5 (yes -5) HDs inc 5 SSDs, 4 RPi 3Bs + 1 RPi 4B - one as an NFS server with two more drives, PiHole (shut yours), Plex server, cloud server, and other random Pi stuff. Nice CoolerMaster case, 2 x NV GTX 1070 8GB, and a whopping 32" AOC 1440P monitor.

[Bob Williams]

That’s hoverflies Dan, and they eat other insects, especially Aphids. If big enough, they will also eat ants. hoovering them up. They will not eat ladybirds, which are only now appearing for some reason. I pick them up and put them at the bottom stalk of my roses: up they go and search for Aphids and WhiteFly to munch upon, knocking ants away as competition for the Aphids. No ant will tackle a ladybird alone: they are vicious predators despite their small size, can give you a bite if you are not careful.

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[The Duke]

I’m allergic to horse fly bites, I’ve only been bitten twice by them once on the calf and once on the for arm, both over 20 years ago, and I still have a 5pence size scare where both was. My arm arm swelled to the size of my thigh. In both cases I needed antibiotics. The pain was brutal.

[Ed P]

I was brought up in an agricultural area that was infested with horseflies. If you can whack the spot as soon as you feel the stab the resulting swelling is normally quite small – also gives you a chance to stamp on the nasty thing. They hurt as the fly evolved to feed on cows and horses who do not fight back, so they dropped the subtlety and go for the maximum jagged bleed, spit in anti-coagulants and lap up the blood.

Stinging or biting flies seem to show preferences for people, In the UK they all go for me, but in New Zealand I was left alone and my wife was inevitably  surrounded by a large visible cloud of biting sand-flies., black-flies (They also have a painful horse-fly like bite, but pee on the bite to make it worse)

[keith with the teef]

I took this vid yesterday.

its amaxing to see what insects like which plant. bees for one, butterflys another and hover flies another etc.

[D-Dan]

@Bob – you’ve got me really guilty now. I hoovered one up (who attacked me barebacked from behind, or possibly just fluttered into me). I’ve seen one in the last three or four days. It’s in my kitchen now looking like it’s on its last legs. I’ll leave it to die in peace.

I hadn’t realised that hoverflies are possibly man’s last hope. Not only do they do the job of wasps (eat aphids), but they are possibly man’s last hope re pollination (they are second only to bees, and with bees in a serious decline, there’s a good chance we need them).

Arch Linux, on a Ryzen 7 1800X, 32 GB, 5 (yes -5) HDs inc 5 SSDs, 4 RPi 3Bs + 1 RPi 4B - one as an NFS server with two more drives, PiHole (shut yours), Plex server, cloud server, and other random Pi stuff. Nice CoolerMaster case, 2 x NV GTX 1070 8GB, and a whopping 32" AOC 1440P monitor.

[Ed P]

Bayer-Monsanto products have attracted a lot of ire for developing insect nerve agents that reputedly kill or disorientate pollinating insects.  If you know a bit about inimical products then you would have found a Monsanto sticker on many of them. everything from DDT and,PCBs through to glyphosphates.

[Richard]

@Keith a nice bit of recording. I should have done the same since mid winter when I was shocked to see some of the largest bees I have ever seen dealing with some of the earliest flowers on a mahonia bush. I suspect they were ‘solitary bees’ rather than honey bees. There are several honey bee keepers in the area, I have had to call one out when swarms land in our garden in inopportune locations, I believed they would be better off managed with a proper hive tended by a proper bee keeper.

Since then we have done fairly well for insects with hover flies and wasps visiting the geraniums, I see them in our porch as I pass in ant out. Happily the hover flies were more numerous and successful than the wasps, which now appear to have given up in favour of eating fallen and fermenting fruit in other locations. The ‘normal bees’ have not been quite some numerous this year, especially in the mid summer, this might be because I have not had much time to potter in the roasting hot garden where flowers have been rather reduced by the weather. This year the fields were growing a cereal crop rather than oil seed rape this time. The crop has just been harvested and the fields are now stacked with rectangular piles of straw or strewn with those massive and weighty rounds of straw. The farm yard I visited this morning appears to have completed its harvesting, so giant combines were at rest along with the giant tractors and trailers that attend them to drag off the harvest. Most of their fields have already been ploughed and the stacked straw bales returned to await their fate. This year a lot of the crop appears to have been sold off the farm rather than going into storage, as the barns were largely empty; I wondered why there is a difference. The harvest has certainly been there, I have seen the laden trailers being dragged out of the fields on their way to the yards, often spilling significant amounts of grain on the road as they go, – that must be a loss. At least the larger grain seeds don’t fall out in quite the same large amounts as with the rape seeds or linseeds. The fields along the dog walk path have only recently been harvested and the giant rounds await removal to allow the field to be ploughed and turned over ready for the next crop

At least this year I have not seen the numbers of giant slugs along the bridleway when walking the dogs. There used to be large numbers of what I believe were the Spanish slugs. About 4 inches long with a bright orange frill on their body, horrid looking things that had only one saving grace they were often feasting on dog mess left by inconsiderate dog walkers. While I clean up after our two I can only bag up and bring back to bin so much of other people’s careless discards. This week the mess bag must still have weighed in excess of twenty pounds.

[Bob Williams]

Richard, the international grain markets are currently volatile. I have spoken to local farmers and googled more websites than I could show here, but the consensus is that the dry, hot weather has led to reduced crop yields all over the world. However, a few years ago Lincolnshire farmers, in conjunction with Anglian Water and the Environment Agency, invested in several measures to retain the ability to irrigate, in spite of being the driest area of the UK in any year. Ponds and lakes were created and a huge pipeline was built along the length of the county by Anglian, to take water from a reservoir further north, to South Lincs. Around here, the Lindsey Marsh Drainage Board carry out “Dyking” to keep the dykes and drains excavated with huge diggers, using the spoil to erect banks around the Dykes and ditches. If the banks are already high enough (and after a lot of annual excavation, many are) the spoil is welcomed by farmers, who have spread the well rotted spoil around their land, often for many decades. Consequently, there have been good crops hereabouts. East Lindsey Farmers are all harvesting: combines owned in common are moving around the area, I followed one today for 8 miles at 15 mph, behind a queue! They are still praying for rain though; we have had very little and this year is the first I have had to use my hosepipe more than 3 times, in 15 years. Farmers need rain after harvesting especially, to soak the ground and build groundwater, then fertilise, plough and sow. it looks as if they get their wish this weekend.

Currently, there is a situation where countries are looking for grain imports to replace their lost crops. The Russians in particular are scouring the world, desperate for grain. The £ is of course falling atm, good for exports, but the UK is hampered by the dumb imposition of Sanctions, which will only hurt ordinary Russian people and British exports of grain, which will be cheaper than others. No amount of sanctions will change Putins’ mind, release the Crimea, or make him admit to poisoning people by his agents. (Or the agents of certain Russian Mafia Oligarchs, which are probably the same agents)

This will not affect the usual, ongoing export of British barley to German breweries, which prize UK barley above their own. Every year the Lincolnshire and East Anglian ports fill German grain ships with barley bound for German breweries. This is the country with the strictest food and drink purity laws in the world, so we must be growing something good! Therefore, all you European travelers and UK pub drinkers of imported German beer should ponder upon the fact that you are imbibing a beverage which may have begun life right here in the UK!

Tastes better or worse for that knowledge now????

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Ed P]

I thought that the Spanish slugs were ‘good guys’ that ate other slugs rather than green vegetation. I could be wrong, but I vaguely remember a Gardeners Question Time comment to leave the big yellow ones alone, but stamp on the little black ones.

[Bob Williams]

A little salt poured onto any slug is a killer. They shrivel up and die, but I always scoop them up and bin them when dead, as I don’t want my backyard feathered friends eating a salty mess, bad for them. That is also better for the environment and other animals including pets, than Slug Pellets.

20+ years ago in Notts, I had an old neighbour who used to get up and out from midnight to 2 am, accompanied by his Jack Russell Spotty, who had learned to spot the invaders and bark at them. He would be in his adjoining front garden under our window, whacking slugs and snails with a big stick. With open bedroom windows in summer heat, all we could hear was “DUFF” ya bugga, that’ll do ye!” A proper old Geordie character, but I had to ask him to stop waking my missus, who felt compelled to wake me.

I showed him the salt trick, asked him to scoop, bin and please leave out the noisy running commentary from himself and Spotty. He was quite happy with all that. I did not wish to upset him, because his missus made the word’s best cheese scones, with a little added mustard which is how the best cheese scones are made. I admit to being a Cheeseaholic!

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[keith with the teef]

@Richard.

Dont forget to read to autumn.

By Keats. He tells the tail a little better than you. 🙂

[Richard]

@Keith meow; Keats was also less current and since when was early August autumn?

[Richard]

Bob, it is certainly unfortunate that the Russian peasantry for voted for a homicidal thug and megalomaniac who likes nothing more than killing or crippling anyone he does not like. There have been others in history in his same mould, some have been disposed of but he will continue to kill until some one has the sense to slip him something to improve his demeanour. Certainly trading with his mob will change nothing as the Greeks and Germans regularly  demonstrate, neither will anything else. He world is stuck with him for the moment.

[Author]

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