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an egg into the acorn, it alsoinjects a cocktail of chemicals that causes the acorn's growth to be interrupted. Then as the grub feeds inside it too secretes chemicals thatalter the normal development of the acorn forcing it to grow into the knopper

one carefully constructed from one cut-out circle of foliage. Inside will have been eggs laid by the leafcutter bee, along with a store of nectar and pollen for the emerging grubs to feed on (we didn't dare look in case we disturbed them).We carefully

, is pale, soft and vulnerable.There must be something of a nutritional gamble going on inside the grub’s metabolism — wait as long as possible to get as big and beefy as possible, or get out quick and hope that early emergence success offsets small size

females) no longer have a burgeoning brood of nest mate grubs to rear in the brood combs. Since it was the grubs that needed the chewed insect protein, the listless workers are now left to forage for themselves, at flowers, fallen fruit and jam sandwiches

go through this behaviour in autumn, and only the fertilised queens (females) survive through winter. In the 'solitary' species, the bees develop in their mainly subterranean nests, and although the grubs may finish feeding on the stored stocks

predators in the garden and they attack all manner of real pests including caterpillars, aphids and flies. They feed the chewed remains to their grubs back at the nest. The last five years have been really bad for wasps; either the hibernating queens have

insects (left). They are ichneumons, parasitoid wasps which lay their eggs inside living caterpillars. The hatching grubs then eat the caterpillars alive from the inside. These specimins had chosen a much damper situation under the bark of a pine log

and parasites.For the first few weeks they must forage alone, feeding the first batch of grubs through to maturity. If the queen dies, eaten by a bird, caught by mould, or trodden underfoot as she struggles to get airborne one cool March morning, the colony

I don't really do birds. I'm usually too busy peering down at insects on flowers or running across leaves. Or I'm on hands and knees, bum in the air, turning stones over looking for ground beetles or grubbing at plant roots for weevils

in the garden there.It is the larva of the birch sawfly, Cimbex femoratus. At over 35mm long and a good 6mm in diameter, it rivals many a plump and handsome moth caterpillar in its size. Unlike lepidopteron larvae, though, the Cimbex grub has only the six 'true