We are having a great early spring. At the very limits of my small handy-cam I took these pictures of a bumble-bee busy in our garden on pulmonaria flowers. I'm not sure of the species, my guess is Bombus terrestris.
Four species of bumble-bee were imported to pollinate red clover in 1885 and again in 1905. Honey bees had been imported for honey production in 1839, but they didn't pollinate the clover.
In a nice twist of fate, the introduced short-haired bumble-bee (Bombus subterraneus), although not common here, has been re-imported to a reserve in Kent. The hope is that the bees will become re-established, as they had become extinct in the UK; the last one having been seen in 1988. Read the story here.
