French wildlife and beekeeping

There seems to be a large number of people in the bee keeping world that can’t get to grips with the fact that Honey bees can and do live quite contentedly without the assistance of Human beings and have done so for some 300,000 years managing the ups and downs of disease and ice ages. Insects really don’t need us to manipulate their life processes, they just require suitable habitat and living conditions and Honey bees are no exception to this, but already I hear the cries of outraged bee fiddlers everywhere accusing me of bad management, spreading disease and worse. Let’s start by taking a quick look at some of the mainstream bee keeping practices; * Clipping the Queens wings to prevent them from being able to fly when the colony attempts to divide and swarm. * Opening the hive on a regular basis, normally every 7/8 days in the season, removing the frames of comb to check for signs of diseases and for any Queen cells that are made prior to swarming. * Should ...

Glow worms are great but many people never see them, perhaps because they simply aren't where they live or perhaps because there is too much light where they are. We are fortunate at our place to have substantial numbers of them due in no small part to the habitat structure of our land but there is no reason why most people shouldn't have them in their garden in rural France, (or the UK for that matter) or that they shouldn't be anywhere else that isn't being constantly ploughed and sprayed. However where they have become locally extinct or absent it is difficult for them to re establish due to the fact that the females can’t fly and rarely move far from their birth place. Generally they have a preference for longish grass, footpath and track edges, roadside verges and the base of hedgerows, anywhere in fact that provides nutrition for the larvae and somewhere for the female to be visible to males that are flying around looking for t...

Oil beetles are another one of those species that not everyone is comfortable with due to their interesting life cycle which we’ll come to. They belong to the genus Meloe which is a large group with some 35 species of Oil beetle in Europe and 15 in France although I’m not sure how rare some of them may be and they are also somewhat understudied according to OPIE. Certainly the commonest are the Black Oil Beetle Meloe proscarabaeus and the one I find at our place the Violet Oil Beetles, Meloe violaceus, and we sure have a lot of them, so many that it’s hard not to tread on them when walking among the trees where the Lesser celandines are flowering at the moment. Click images to enlarge Below: Newly emerged female before putting on weight. Below: Female having put on weight.  Below: Recently emerged male with pronounced kinked antennae . Below: Another male, again showing pronounced kinked antennae. They are a flightless beetle without fu...

Osmia cornuta is one of the first solitary bees to emerge in spring and as such is an important pollinator of fruit trees such as apricots, plums and almonds. Present in most of Europe , (not the north), it is a species that has disappeared from most areas of intensive agriculture, but it survives well in some urban areas, wastelands, public parks and gardens in particular areas.  Given this living where we do in the intensive cereal lands I was extremely pleased to see a group of these about midday buzzing around the table on the patio in the sunshine. At first I thought they were Osmia bicolor with their bright orange abdomens and black head and thorax, not easy to see when they don’t settle. Anyway, a little later Lynne called me to say that a couple were kindly putting on a performance for me on the table and providing a photo opportunity.  Please Click on images to enlarge.  They are closely related to both Osmia bicolor the Two Co...

Human activity has always changed the environment, and in this article in 2014 I took a quick look at an extraordinary area that since 1980 has been the first and only State Nature Reserve in the Vienne departement of France, La Réserve Naturelle du Pinail which is located in the commune of Vouneuil-sur-Vienne, (86210). The Reserve is 30 km north-east from Poitiers and 15 km south of Châtellerault, where it sits high on the plains between the river valleys of the Vienne and the Clain, at the north of the state-owned Moulière forest. The reserve is well worth a visit, especially for people with an interest in Odonata, (Dragonflies and Damselflies). CONTINUED  HERE. Chris

It seems such a waste to restrict some of my articles to a limited audience when this blog and the web sites are viewed around the world and so I'm starting to put some on the web site. This is Harriers and their protection from an article in 2014 for Living Magazine which is an English language magazine covering Poitou-Charentes, Dordogne , Vendée and Haute-Vienne in south west France . The plains of Poitou-Charentes and Vendée whether they be the high open windswept areas such as those characterises by the areas to the north west and west of Poitiers towards Thouars and Parthenay or the vast low open wetlands of the Marais poitevin and coastline are especially suited to certain birds, some of which are under severe pressure at the European and National level making our region particularly important for their continued well being..............       Read the article with photos HERE. Living Magazine Chris

Very few people are neutral when it comes to certain native plants, (or weeds as they are often known as), especially the more robust and common types such as Dandelions and Thistles and I certainly don’t want them in my vegetable or flower beds. However they along with a few other native plants form the most important natural source of nutrition for many of our butterflies, bees, hoverflies and other flying insects growing as they do in a vast range of different habitats and are worth a second thought before trying to chop them down or poison them at every opportunity as is sadly the case in an increasingly tidy and over managed landscape here in France. Click on pictures to enlarge. Of course I don’t expect for one minute that anyone will suddenly think “Oh, I must grow some thistles or sow a dandelion patch” especially if they live in an urban environment or in very close proximity to their neighbours but I would like to encourage anyone with some land or with larger ...