6
THE BLUE CARPENTER BEE IN SOUTH ESSEX
On the 31st August I visited Mill Wood Pits near the famous Lakeside' in Thurrock and
spent a couple of hours looking for hymenoptera. A male Blue Carpenter bee Ceratina
cyanea (national status rare RDB3) was found resting on a yellow composite flower.
This is apparently the first record for the county for a very long time (George Else,
personal communication). The nationally notable A bee Hylaeus cornutus and Notable
B Nomada flavopicta were also found during the visit. Two further visits in the
following two weeks found males and females of the Ceratina cyanea to be present in
some numbers.
According to the English Nature publication "A review of the scarce, and threatened
bees, wasps and ants of Great Britain"(Falk, 1991) the species has seemingly disappeared
from large parts of its former range and today is largely confined to sites on or adjacent to
the South Downs of W. Sussex, where it is locally frequent. The bee favours a variety of
warm situations, including chalk grassland, particularly south-facing slopes, abandoned
sand and gravel pits, waste ground, heathland and open rides in woodland. Cooler and
more shaded north-facing sites and exposed situations all seem to be avoided. Usually
there is a requirement for clumps of bramble or rose bushes, the broken dead pithy stems
being used for nesting and hibernation sites.
The Mill Wood Pit site consists of a deep chalk pit above which there is a large area of
sandy ground, the chalk coming to the surface at the western side of the site. A small
strip of Mill Wood survives and contains species such as Wood Spurge and Stinking Iris.
The sandy area is excellent for hymenoptera because of the variety of south-facing sand
exposures available for nesting and the uneven nature of the ground means that there are
many small sheltered parts to the site. A certain amount of regular scrambler-biking has
helped to maintain areas of bare sandy ground. The vegetation shows various degrees of
calcareous influence and is flower-rich, providing an excellent variety of pollen and
nectar sources for the hymenoptera.
During the two further visits to the the site more nationally notable and rare species of
hymenoptera were recorded, including the bees Melitta tricincta (Notable B) with a
requirement for Red Bartsia pollen, Lasioglossum xanthopum and L. malachurum (both
Notable B) together with the aculeate wasps Smicromyrme rufipes (Notable B),
Philanthus triangulum (RDB2), Cerceris quinquefasciata (RDB3) and its parasitoid the
chrysid wasp Hedychrum niemalei (RDB3). All this at the end of the season! Clearly
this is likely to be an important site for invertebrates generally.
Peter Harvey
NEW RECORDS FOR THE ACULEATE WASP Crossocerus distinguendus
This small black solitary wasp was first found in the county in 1989 by Mark Hanson in
Epping Forest at Yardley Hill. This year two more specimens, both males, have turned up
in Essex. I collected one on the 28th May in my garden in Grays, Essex and the second
on the 1 st July in the Flitch Way Country Park, a stretch of disused railway track west of
Great Dunmow. Yet another male was amongst some material that 1 looked at recently,
collected in September 1988 by Colin Plant in his garden in Bishops Stortford, just over
the border in Hertfordshire.