Starting on Sat 14 March, the weather turned to summer and everyone and everything was out in the garden. Among other things, we saw several huge (~3cm long) bumble bees, presumably queens, with white or whitish bottoms, and dark brown and lighter brown bands round their middles. There were more on Sunday and more again on Monday, but not on Tuesday today, as the clouds are bigger and a slight chilly nip in the breeze. Please has anyone any idea which sort they were? And where were they hoping to make a nest? Should we not cut the grass, or not pull up weeds, or not cut down dead bits of shrubs, or not disturb the compost heap, or what?
Your Forum
This forum has now been more or less replaced by the Club's Facebook page at 
The weblog below is for naturalists to use to report interesting sightings, ask questions, report on field meetings and generally post pictures and any information or questions generally relevant in some way to the wildlife and geology of Essex. You will need to register and be logged-on to post to the forum, and you need to upload pictures first, for use in posts. Find out more
The weblog below is for naturalists to use to report interesting sightings, ask questions, report on field meetings and generally post pictures and any information or questions generally relevant in some way to the wildlife and geology of Essex. You will need to register and be logged-on to post to the forum, and you need to upload pictures first, for use in posts. Find out more