Bombus Lucorum or Bombus Jonellus

A bit stumped with this bee - initially thought Hortorum but then got an expert to look at it and the jury is out on Lucorum or Jonellus - in this area Jonellus incredibly rare so need to go refind one and try capture it - a job for Wayne I think😂 - here’s all the images I took comments welcome

Bombus Hypnorum

Otherwise known as Tree Bumblebee, this is the biggest one I have seen in the garden - absolutely fabulous if only I could get a sharp flight shot!

Social or Cuckoo?

Bees are so confusing if only I knew an expert, late yesterday evening in the garden was this individual  very frustrating - on the face of it its definitely a male social Buff-tailed Bumblebee because: black facial hair, single yellow stripe on thorax and abdomen, tail dirty white to buff, shiny flat and broad tibia, very hairy making it look furry!  However I could also say its definitely a Vestal Cuckoo-Bee because: very lethargic, stripe on thorax darker than stripe on abdomen, no pollen sacs and dark wings.

And one last perplexing feature - antennal segments - 13 in a male, 12 in a female, I can only make out 10 in this image!

Bombus lapidarius

Lots of Bumblebees out today on the Lavender, pretty sure this one is a male Red-tailed Bumblebee, nb yellow face.

Bombus Terrestris

Finally I think I can be 100% confident in id’ing a bee!  This is at least to my mind a queen Buff-tailed Bumblebee - only the queen has a truly buff-tail and this one has if you look at the second photo.

More Tree Bumblebees

I keep coming across Tree Bumblebees wherever I go - this nest is in Alkborough village and I have also seen them in 2 gardens in Ashby and Scunthorpe and of course they are numerous in our Normanby garden.
Down on Alkborough Flats yesterday were 14 Little Egrets,  3 Spoonbills and another 5 Sandwich Terns dropped in but no sign of Friday's reported Great White Egret.  Also in our garden on Friday we had our first Hummingbird Hawkmoth of the season and 3 Long-Eared Bats chasing around the Birch at the bottom of the garden.

Bombus Lapidarius - Red-Tailed Bumblebee

Or so I thought! now not so sure after zooming in and seeing a gorgeous hairy yellow face I’m now thinking Bombus Pratorum (Early Bumblebee) but it doesn’t seem to have a striped yellow thorax so who knows.

More Bombus..

The Bees are still frustrating me beyond belief and other then the Tree Bumble I don’t think I have yet to correctly identify one here’s some more I’m not sure of..

These could all be Bombus Terrestris (Buff-tailed Bumblebee) but zoom in and some do not have extensive hairy back tibia which would make them Bombus Bohemicus!

Woundwort Shieldbug - Eysarcoris fabricii

Armed with stool, walking stick and bucketfuls of painkillers I made my first venture out of the garden with Wayne this morning in the hope(in our dreams) of bumping into a  Two-Barred Crossbill as you can imagine no Crossbills or at least Two-Barreds were seen but we did finally come across a known patch of one of my favourite plants Herb Paris which I had been dying to see and in the same area we found this Woundwort Shieldbug 4th instar, now I sound like an expert but in reality I just googled it and have never heard the tem “instar” before but presumably it’s an early stage of adulthood!  On the bird front today we have seen a Red Kite, Med Gull, Yellow Legged Gull, 2 Whimbrel, 565 Avocet on the humber and 2 Common Crossbills over the garden.

Herb Paris

Now I have discovered an urge in me to identify all Bumblebees in the garden I find myself looking further a field, the trouble is the more I try to identify them the more confused I get.  I’m not even going to attempt these two except to say I think the first is a Cuckoo and the second a Social - I really need an expert so if anyone out there …….