The key thing to note that this list is only the macro's (big moths) - we trapped a myriad of micro's (very small moths - some almost microscopic in scale), which is fairly typical when conducting this type of survey.
#BEE GARDEN MUIR WOODS FULL#
This is powerful nature, full of wonder! Moth Trapping July 2018:Ī very successful morning at UWNR inspecting the traps and Hugo Brooke identifying the following species.
The remarkable thing is that we erected this 50 litre hive, about 6 weeks ago (early May 2018) - so in just 42 days the worker bees (each individual weighing just 0.00025 pounds) have completely filled this cavity. My take on this - wild colonies are more vigorous & healthy, and can ward off things like varroa. And significantly there were no Varroa mites on the base plate of the hive - this destructive parasite is the bane of commercial bee keeping. The combs were covered in black-brown bees, vigorously working coating the comb in propolis. 8 full-length, pure white vertical combs, attached at the top and sides of the wild-hive and with sufficient space between each comb for two bees to comfortably pass. What Matt revealed, when he removed the bottom cover of the ecomimicking freedom hive, was just mind-blowing. I was feeling a bit anxious, but remaining hopeful that the new swarm had thrived over a challenging spring and early summer. On July 23rd Matt Somerville came to inspect the wild-hive we had installed at the beginning of May 2018. They live as wild colonies, for their own value & benefit, and not for our wants. This mission fits hand and glove with one of the key aims of UWNR, and for me this is one of the most exciting developments of the last four years.įor more in depth information about Matt's revolutionary work, please click on the Read More link to his website below. His mission is to have honey bees living as wild creatures, where they live unmolested and honey is perhaps never extracted. He has looked carefully at how we manage and too often overly exploit honey bees, to their detriment. The fact that this took place is entirely down to the ground-breaking work done by Matt.
UWNR took another significant leap forward this week (4th May 2018), when we installed a wild bee hive - the pictures below show Matt Somerville installing the hive in one of the veteran oaks at UWNR. Orange Tip (Arthur identified this butterfly during a visit to UWNR in May 2017) After about 2 hours of meticulous observing we had compiled a pretty impressive list (according to Arthur) - as follows: The survey was lead by Arthur Bryant from Wiltshire Butterfly Conservation - Arthur, a long standing member of Butterfly Conservation, is highly experienced & knowledgeable. While the designated glades supported decent number of species the banks of blackberry bramble, which were in bloom, supported very significant numbers of species. The conditions were just perfect with very light winds blowing from the south-east, bright sun and an air temperature into the mid 20's degrees C. This was the first proper Butterfly Survey ever done at UWNR. First ever proper Butterfly Survey - 18th July 2017
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