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in an old disused sandpit I guess I will never discover, nor how long it had been there.It is much too big for the local foxes to bother with, but I have already seen a solitary bee, an Andrena species, sunning itself on the forehead, and ants have been

My garden - like yours - is looking fantastic at the moment. Plants that were just poking from cold ground a couple of months ago are now enormous and luxuriant. Bees buzz, roses overflow and lawns are lush.Rather than just brag, I thought I

, then this is the creature. But, sadly, it is just 'one of the ichneumons', which is quite frankly pathetic. Ichneumons are large and striking insects, allied to bees, wasps and ants. (Ichneumon is also another name for the Egyptian mongoose but we don't get those in East

bees, bluebottles and hoverflies, but the overwhelming majority of visitors are wasps. Both of the common species are here, Vespula vulgaris and V. germanica and most of them are males. It takes me a couple of minutes to work this out; it’s something

problem: the hazel (unlike many plants) cannot fertilise itself, so needs to find another tree. How to disseminate pollen from one tree to another? Many plants use insects — bees, wasps, moths, butterflies or ants — while others draw on the services

that some people talk to the bees. Why don't you try talking to the wasps?"Suppressing the urge to be flippant as best I could I asked her: "what should I tell the wasps?""Just tell them that you will leave them alone if they leave you alone." So, off I

-footed bee hovered briefly outside the kitchen.I've just been wandering about the garden in my shirtsleeves, feeling the real warmth of the sun catch me, and it seems that all the wildlife has just been queuing up ready for this sunshine. The trouble is, I

There's a park near me. It's a great place to escape the urban sprawl. There, I've spotted eight species of bumblebee (including a winter buff-tailed colony), plus honey, solitary and feather-footed bees. I've also seen butterflies, great spotted

more.All this is augmented with plants grown specifically to boost fertility of the soil (so obviating any need for fertilisers) and plants to encourage bees and other pollinating insects.One of the slight disadvantages is that, obviously, a forest

, but the new site I'm on has suffered from it terribly.A blight warning - sometimes called the Smith Period - occurs when there have been two consecutive days with temperatures of at least 10? and relative humidity has been above 90%.I try to grow vegetables