A Sting in the Tale (33 page)

30
. Some plants, such as the bird's-nest orchid, are entirely parasitic, gaining all their nutrients from other plants. They have no need for chlorophyll since they do not bother to photosynthesise themselves, and so are usually an anaemic pale brown in colour. Yellow rattle and its relatives are described as hemiparasitic because they have a mix-and-match strategy; they do make their own energy via photosynthesis and so they need green leaves, but they also steal nutrients from other plants when they can.

31
. These spectacular insects normally hang around the tops of oak trees, and so are seldom seen. One old-fashioned technique that was used by butterfly collectors was to place a well-rotted dead rat on a woodland ride. Beautiful though the butterflies are, they have a macabre taste for the juices that leak from such a corpse and are often lured down.

Chapter 16. A Charity Just for Bumblebees

32
. Twenty-seven species have been described from the UK, but the cryptic bumblebee was not discovered here until very recently, and the tree bumblebee did not arrive until 2001.

33
. In truth the apple bumblebee may never have been resident in the UK. It is known only from four specimens, captured by one Frederick Smith and his son Edward on the dunes near Deal in Kent in about 1865. Smith was a highly experienced entomologist who worked at the British Museum, so the record is likely to be genuine, but none have been recorded since.

34
. Charles Darwin experienced this phenomenon first-hand. The Darwin and Wedgwood families intermarried repeatedly over four generations, with Darwin marrying his cousin Emma. They had ten children, three of whom died early in life and three more of whom never had children of their own. It is likely that the taboos against marriage between relatives, which are widespread in human societies, came about to prevent such instances.

35
. I must immediately apologise for this shockingly stereotypical portrayal of a farmer. Of course they are not all male or from Somerset, except in my head. Dumbledore, you may have gathered, is the old English name for bumblebee, possibly originating in Somerset or Sussex.

36
. This book, by Oliver Prys-Jones and Sarah Corbet, is a great little introduction to British bumblebees, with a good identification guide, distribution maps and lots of drawings and pictures.

37
. This reminds me of my favourite adage, from an old home winemaking recipe book: ‘Five gallons are as easy to make as one, and last nearly twice as long.'

Chapter 17. Return of the Queen

38
. Strangely, the old-fashioned hair curlers, plastic open-ended cylinders with lots of small holes and protruding nobbles on the sides, are perfect for temporary storage of bumblebee queens. Each hair curler is stoppered at both ends with the queen inside, and then they can be packed together with dental wadding between them, the latter soaked in sugar solution. So long as they are kept cool, queens can survive for a week or so like this, occasionally poking their tongues into the dental wadding for a refreshing drink.

39
. Hedgehogs in New Zealand provide a neat example. They were introduced before bumblebees in small numbers, and the resulting inbreeding has led to them having unappealingly malformed teeth. Nonetheless, in the absence of competitors they survive very well, and have made an enormous nuisance of themselves. Even with their sub-standard dentition they cheerfully and effectively consume the eggs of endangered birds such as the black stilt and black-fronted tern. One hedgehog was found to contain 283 weta legs; these are fearsome-looking mouse-sized crickets, found only in New Zealand, which are rapidly heading towards extinction thanks to our prickly friends and other introduced enemies.

APPENDIX

Common and Latin Names of British Bumblebees

Some of my fellow scientists may be a little annoyed by my persistent use of common names for bumblebee species. This is frowned upon as it can lead to confusion: different common names are used in different countries, and sometimes multiple common names may be in use. On the other hand, a blizzard of Latin names can be rather off-putting. Below are the formal Latin names and English names of the British bumblebee species. The English name for the cryptic bumblebee I made up, but it seems a logical translation of the Latin, and appropriate enough for a bee that can be distinguished from other species only by examining its DNA.

Acknowledgements

Particular thanks are due to my agent Patrick Walsh for his support and encouragement, and to Ellen Rotheray and Kirsty Park, my first and best reviewers. I'd also like to thank all of my research collaborators and my students for their ideas and enthusiasm, and to ask their forgiveness for any inaccuracies in my recall of events. Thanks are also due to my wife, Lara, and our three lovely boys, who somehow put up with my considerable eccentricities.

Index

The index that appeared in the print version of this title does not match the pages in your eBook. Please use the search function on your eReading device to search for terms of interest. For your reference, the terms that appear in the print index are listed below.

Alcock, John

amber

Amin, Ruhul

ant

Angraecum sesquipedale

Antherophagus nigricornis

Apicystis bombi

Apoidea

apple

apple bumblebee

aquilegia

Arctic

Australia

badger

Baker, Barbara

Banks, Brian

bee-eater

beewalks

beewolf

Belgium

bilberry bumblebee

bird's-foot trefoil

bird's-nest orchid

Bombus dahlbomii

Bombus deuteronymous

Bombus franklini

Bombus hyperboreus

Bombus hypocrita

Bombus melanopoda

Bombus niveatus

Bombus polaris

Bombus rubriventris

Bombus wilmattae

borage

Braconidae

Brown, Mark

brown-banded carder bumblebee

Buckland, Frank

buddleia

buff-tailed bumblebee

Bumblebee Conservation Trust

burnet moth

butterfly

campion

Casey, Leanne

cat

catmint

Cederberg, Bjorn

Charente

China

Chittka, Lars

chives

Christchurch, New Zealand

cinnabar moth

clover ley

Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD)

comfrey

commercial bumblebees

common carder bumblebee

Conopidae

courtship

cowslip

cow-wheat

Cretaceous

cricket

Crithidia bombi

cuckoo bumblebee

Cullem's bumblebee

dandelion

Darvill, Ben

Darwin, Charles

Dawson, Bob

De Jonghe, Roland

Defence Animals Centre

dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT)

Dickinson, Emily

dinosaur

diseases

DNA fingerprinting

Donovan, Barry

dragonfly

drifting

Dungeness

Durrell, Gerald

early bumblebee

echidna

Edwards, Mike

Ellington, Charles

Ellis, Ciaran

Ellis, Jon

Eltz, Thomas

England, Bridget

evolution

eyebright

Feltham Hannah

Fereday R. W.

fertilizer

flower colour preferences

foraging behaviour

Ford, E. B.

forest cuckoo bumblebee

fox

foxglove

France

Gammans, Nikki

garden bumblebee

garden

gorse

Grantz, Gerald J.

Graystock, Pete

great tits

great yellow bumblebee

Hadza

Hanley, Mick

haploid

harmonic radar

Harrison-Cripps, Jennifer

hawk moth

hay meadow

heath bumblebee

Hebrides

hedgehog

hedgerow

Heinrich, Bernd

hemiparasite

hibernation

Himalayas

Hitler, Adolf

Holland

hollyhock

homing

honey

honeybee

Hopkins, Tony

horse chestnut

hoverfly

Hughes, Bill

hummingbird

huntsman

Huxley, Thomas

hybrid

hydrocarbon

Hymenoptera

inbreeding

Independent

intensification, farming

Japan

Kells, Andrea

Kent

kestrel

kiwi fruit

knapweed

Knight, Mairi

landmark

larvae

lavender

Lee, Paul

legumes

Leopold, Aldo

Leverhulme Trust

Lopez-Vaamonde, Carlos

Lubbock, John

lungwort

lupin

Lye, Gillian

machair

Martin, Andrew

mating

McCarthy, Mike

mice

mimicry

mink

mite

moss carder bumblebee

moth

Mutilidae

nectar

Nevada bumblebee

New Zealand

Newman, H.

nitrogen fixation

North America

Nosema bombi

O'Connor, Steph

oilseed rape

O'Neill, Kevin

Oronsay

Osborne, Juliet

owl

parasites

parrot

Patterson's curse

Peat, James

Penado, Andreia

Perthshire

pesticide

pheromone

pig, beer-drinking

pigeon

pollen

pollination

pooter

predators

protozoa

Ptacek, Vladimír

pussy willow

Pywell, Richard

quail

rabbit

Rayner, Pippa

red bartsia

red-belted bumblebee

red clover

Redpath, Nicky

red-shanked carder bumblebee

redstart

red-tailed bumblebee

Reid, Rosemary

reintroduction

Rhizobium

rhododendron

robber fly

root nodule

Romney Marsh

rosemary

Rothamsted Research

Rotheray, Ellie

Royal Society for the Protection of Birds

ruderal bumblebee

sage

Salisbury Plain

Sangster, Liz

Sarcophagidae

scabious

Schmid-Hempel, Paul