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that certain chemical scents (pheromones) from the queen became diluted beyond a critical threshold, and this stimulated the workers to raise new queens. The old queen then left with a large cohort of workers — the swarm — to make a new nest elsewhere

they are transformed by the arrival of tonnes of imported topsoil and a bewildering rainbow of garden plants, for Gardeners' World Live.Whilst I was there I was asked to research and create a container of plants to attract wildlife, and despite the rain, it looked

, which is one reason why it pays to lay off the pesticides whenever possible. Without pests there would be no food, and far fewer birds!The only thing I have to worry about now is making sure I've warmed-up properly before getting stuck into some vigorous

-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

as tubby as the bees it resembles, it makes up for it by carrying off a diverse array of colour-ways, mimicking a variety of bumble species.Some specimens are almost all black, or with just the tail brownish red (just like the red-tailed bumble), some have

-year-old is still enthralled by insects, and was amazed by the bellowing buzz coming from the drain outside our back door recently. Suddenly, a black and yellow insect, large enough to make the rest of the family wince, floated out through the cast iron grill cover

wooden box filled with stems of sunflower, teasel and bamboo to make a solitary bee hotel.But that's no guarantee - wildlife can choose the most unpredictable places to live. This summer I visited some buff-tailed bumblebees nesting in a concrete path

For anyone who thought the cold winter might have been a bit harsh for wildlife, I hope the recent heatwave has been an eye-opener. I’ve certainly never seen so much insect life in April before. The garden has been awash with orange-tips, holly

-worshipers, and the last few warm weeks have seemed perfect for them. As in bumblebees, it is only the mated queen wasps that survive the winter. When they emerge, they must each found a new nest from scratch. For several weeks, the queen must chew wood pulp to make

at the edge of the water in total darkness with bats swirling around me.Like so much of our wildlife, bats are having a hard time. This is mostly due to the widespread use of pesticides in agriculture. British bats feed exclusively on insects, so spraying