Off Topic The Goodhand Arms

There is a significant lack of bugs around. Its very noticeable. Nature is in massive decline. People will start noticing in the coming months.

 

Nothing more annoying than a tooled up squadron of wasps trying to get at your pint of thatchers though is there...

 

You'll miss them when they're gone.........

 

Not wasps. They are completely pointless and a massive pain in the arse. Literally when you sit on one like I did once.

 

Thanks for commenting.
Indeed, the lack of insects is easily noticeable. There was a time, just a few years ago, when during the late spring and summer months, there could be a squadron in the various rooms as the windows were flung open to let fresh air in. It doesn't happen now. Just this afternoon I had the French windows open. One sorry little fly popped in and straight out again, and I have quite a green garden, so I should be attracting them. If we start to lose mass pollination of plants then we will be really in the sh*t. We'll all have to be issued with paint brushes. And I don't mean for budding Picassos either.

 

Wasps help pollinate plants.

 

Well I've never noticed that. Bees yes. All I see wasps doing are flying in my open bedroom window in the summer months and me spending half an hour trying to get them to piss off. Or nesting in the most irritating place possible.

 

Hey, they're not my favourites either, but they do.

 

We do pretty well for insects, here in the sticks. I've normally got damsel and dragonflies that breed in the pond, stacks of different butterflies and moths, loads of different beetles, spider species galore plus at least 10 types of bees. Wasps are pretty common but don't normally bother us and we get the odd hornet turn up.
Being right next to open countryside and having a pond help though, and I planted things for pollinating insects like borage, comfrey and honeysuckle.
I'm lucky living where I do though, and the garden is big enough to do things like leaving a clump of stinging nettles for butterflies, peacocks especially, and the buddleia always looks fairly well visited by different species.

 

No matter where you live, you can do a little bit to help. Leave some dead wood lying in a shaded corner, don't pull up the Dandelion or Red Campion straight away. They were here before us, leave them some room.

 

Hate the blooming things but they eat a lot of insects such as greenfly.

 

I'd like to do a smaller version of this at some point

 

Stag beetle 5 star resort! Like it.

 

It's in the Lost Gardens of Heligan in Cornwall. Fantastic place to spend a day strolling around - it's full of little surprises like this sculpture


It's called the Mud Maid apparently

 

No wonder there's a shortage of insects, wasps are eating them.

 

My garden backs onto fields, which means I can leave little containers of sugar syrup on top of fence posts without annoying the neighbours cos there aren't any that side. That attracts the wasps, and they leave us mostly alone. A badminton racket takes care of the persistant trespassers if they start getting arsy
Edit. I got stung in the eyeball and in my mouth when I was a kid by a pissed off mob of wasps, but I still can't bring myself to hate them

 

Well said.

 

Why is it our info has vanished ? Likes etc . Just curious .

 

A man goes to a costume party with nothing but a naked woman on his back.


"What are you supposed to be, then?" the host asks.


"I'm a turtle,"


"How can you be a turtle when all you've got is that naked woman on your back?"


"Oh her?" He smiles. "That's just Michelle!"

 

It hasn’t!