The Coronavirus Quarantine Picture Show

This is a question that has been bugging me for a while. How do you know if this is a buff-tailed bumble bee or a white-tailed bumble bee? I have a guide but the illustrations for both is identical! Never quite worked this one out.

The photo of the Rosy Starling is incredible. I believe that they are more typical of parts of Europe such as Russia but I have never seen one. They look a lot better in the photo than in the illustrations I have seen.

 

Can't say for sure from the photos Ian, but it looks like a tree bumblebee.
The buff tailed has a white tail but there is usually a sort of line of buff hairs where the white bit meets the black on the abdomen, sometimes it's quite pronounced. I get both in my garden, so the difference is clearer when you see them together.
Both the white and buff tailed have 2 yellow bands, one each on thorax and abdomen
Tree bumblebees also have a white tail, however they are lacking the yellow stripe on the abdomen.
The first photo is a buff tail
Second is a white tail
Third is a tree bumblebee.
Not my photos, I hasten to add, as I'm allergic to bee stings so don't get close enough to take good photos of them.

 

The rosy starling picture was taken on Portland, I have never seen one either.

 

I don't think bumblebees sting do they?

 

Queens and workers can, and they don't have barbed stings like honeybees, so they can give you a couple of jabs.
They are pretty docile though when they're out and about, but I don't chance it like I would with a Wasp or hornet.

 

RJ

Thanks very much with this information. It is quite easy when armed with these facts. I am going to have to record this in my note book. I tend to keep a log of what I see when I go out and find that it is to good idea to record clues to identification in the book as well. Bees do seem harder to identify than warblers or waders, which are the two species of birds which vex me.

 

There are a few issues with photos on here
My method fo getting them on gets ever more complex
and this one has failed

 

If file too big, I just crop the picture and then it posts.

 

shoot_spiderman said: ↑
There are a few issues with photos on here
My method fo getting them on gets ever more complex
and this one has failed

I download photos from my android phone or camera to a windows 10 file on my lappy, open the photo, right click mouse. select resize, select S then save with s added to the file name.
'Upload a file'
as a thumbnail

or full image

 

I may have said previously, but I use an android phone.
I look at any picture I want to post using "gallery" or "Photos" and then I take a screenshot.
I go back into "gallery" and crop the newly created screenshot to remove everything apart from the original photograph
I then upload the edited screenshot.

It works every time for me, and you don't have to crop out parts of the original image to make it fit.

 

I send photos I have taken on my android phone to myself on Messenger and then save them on my iPad. When posting on here using the iPad you have a choice of sizing to use, so I just pick the largest which is less than 2MB.

 

... and then sometimes 606 turns the picture sideways, but if I turn it sideways then, then post it again it leaves it, its like it just wants to be contrary
I can't get this the right way round on here, its fine everywhere else

Its Corfe Castle or a mans face with a big nose ... whatever!

 

More bees, this time just the nests. Tawny Mining bees, only about 5 - 10mm long. Nests for individuals, but there's 000s of separate nests in just one bare corner of a field that probably covers 15m x 10m and the same again on the opposite corner. I downloaded a picture of the bee as I didn't have any. Edit. There's one in the bottom right hand corner of the first photo, tiny ginger blur

 

Ha! That’s what I once said to my once wife as she was pegging washing out and one was on the sheets. After it stung her, she gave me hell and never forgot it ......

 

I was going to say it must obviously be an old wive’s tale, but perhaps a tale of old wives would be more appropriate?

 

I often wonder if it had anything to do with the divorce a few years later ....

 

Pond coming on well

 

and the new abundent critter is the Common Hover Fly
Looks like a Bee, but it is a Fly
Pollinator and consumer of Aphids and other garden warriors

The Common Water Beetles are pleased to have an Ally, this is a Socialist Pond

 

It’s far Calmer on this thread than the Premier League one. Day 1 and a fights already broken out

That’s the healing power of nature

Footballs back,

 

18th birthday (socially distanced in the car port with access to down stairs loo through the utility room where the bunny lives. He ended up in the kitchen.

wife not happy as kitchen now like a zoo/farmyard