Ecologist & beekeeper. Beekeeping & wild pollinator conservation consultancy working with businesses & communities to benefit London's pollinators
London, England
Joined August 2015
- Tweets13.1K
- Following802
- Followers2.7K
- Likes1.1K
Pinned Tweet
Think I’ve just found 9 Small-flowered Tongue Orchids on the @Nomura green roof. What do you recon @Mike_Waller_ @BSBIbotany @fungi_flowers
Interference competition between honey bees and wild pollinators. Relevant paper published 12 September. Pause to observe the nearest patch of ivy and see this for yourself. resjournals.onlinelibrary.wi…
Ivy bees feeding on spear mint and mustard blooms on the @Nomura roof today. First time recording them here. Bee species #34 for the roof
Insane varroa drip on these 2 hives 14 days after formic pro applied. I’ve delayed treatment post honey harvest a month longer than usual due to the high temperatures. Mites have had a long hot summer to multiply between interventions. Been ages since I saw a drop so big.
@BBC @CountryfileMag why are you demonising native wildflowers ragwort and spear thistle? Dangerously misleading information. Not illegal to grow in gardens. Vital resource for declining pollinators. No wonder people refuse to pay the license fee when you publish such DRIVEL.
Having complained to the bbc I have had a reply that I need to complain to their arms length privatised company that manages these publications. Please direct your outrage to [email protected]
Catch me today at the @FoTHCP summer fair 12-5pm
Local honey, candles, bee friendly plants grown by @TCESEastLondon pupils and display of wild bees found in the cemetery.
Gophir lane EC4 vehicles are having to mount the pavement to get around the dozens of bikes dumped in the road @limebike @forestbike_uk @cityoflondon
This endangers pedestrians and drivers alike. Sort it out
Bottom of Suffolk lane EC4 @cityoflondon @limebike @forestbike_uk
Crossing blocked by stupid users dumping bikes. Also bikes parked in bike lane. Sort it out will ya.
@bbc @CountryfileMag why are you taking Crap advice from a garden furniture company on the legality of Uk native wild flowers? An ecological expert would have been better qualified. Not @af_furniture
Please see expert guidance and correct information on ragwort from @Buzz_dont_tweet fact sheets on their website. See tweets about ragwort and pollinators from @StevenFalk1 and @Love_plants.
Api:Cultural retweeted
Westminster Council is threatening to shut down a soup kitchen at Charing Cross that's fed vulnerable people for a decade.
Their objection? It attracts "crowds of vulnerable people."
They've hit volunteers with a £500 parking charge for the van that brings the food. Demanded a waste-disposal licence. Turned up repeatedly with police and security officers to complain.
This is the same council that floated restricting "vertical drinking" (standing with a pint in Soho) to protect the area’s "character."
So yes: they care about neighbourhood character. Just not when the people who need help are too visible.
The soup kitchen feeds people with nothing.
Westminster Council would rather it happened somewhere else, presumably, without crowds of "vulnerable people."
By the same logic, they'll be closing hospitals next - all those tediously sick people, cluttering up the character of the neighbourhood...
Api:Cultural retweeted
The Ruby-tailed Cuckoo Wasp is a kleptoparasite of bees, including the mason bees that commonly inhabit bee hotels.
When the bee is out foraging, the wasp sneaks into the nest to lay its egg. Eventually the egg hatches, and the wasp larva eats the bee larva along with the stores of pollen and nectar that were left for it.
Kleptoparasitism is a specific form of parasitism where one animal survives by stealing the resources of another.
Parasitic and parasitoid insects are not deserving of moral condemnation but are fascinating and beautiful animals in their own right, worthy of appreciation and conservation, and an important part of the extraordinary diversity of life on Earth.
There are several thousand species of Ruby-tailed Cuckoo Wasp and each species has slightly different behaviours and host preferences
Nationally scarce Pantaloon bees Dasypoda hirtipes foraging on Calendual blooms in the @TCESEastLondon school garden this morning. Another amazing biodiversity find in the tiny school garden.
Api:Cultural retweeted
Terrible story of how a family are stuck without redress with no one taking responsibility for horrendous collision. More on 1330 / 1830 BBC1 @BBCLondonNews
bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c33y…
Yellow loosestrife bee Macropis europea today on Wanstead park. London nature recovery strategy priority species has had its habitat destroyed on this site. It’s only food plant cut down around the dam. @CoLEnvironment @CityCommons @cityoflondon must do better to protect this bee
Buzzard over shoteditch park being mobbed by debouviour peregrines. It landed on the cranes next door to my flat before being shaded off in direction of London fields
The next few days of hot weather are going to be disasterous for UK Bumblebees which cannot thermal regulate above 29-32 celcius. We will likely see a crash in numbers as we did in 2022 and 2024. This is climate change real time effecting biodiversity.
So hot in the school greenhouse right now that the thermometer exploded! It only goes as high as 50 celcius.
Wildlife? How out of touch is our mayor? They are wing clipped captive birds (with the exception of one who can fly). They are not wildlife.
Post about reintroduced native dalmations pelicans breeding in London and that will be something to really celebrate about.
History has hatched in London.
For the first time in over 360 years, pelican chicks have successfully been born in St. James’s Park. These four new arrivals mark a monumental milestone for wildlife in the heart of our capital.
londonist.com/london/news/pe…
28 people on today’s bee walk with @FoTHCP. We saw Hoplitis adunca, Chelostoma campanularum, nationally rare moths, batman hoverfly, leafcutters, mason bees and Wilks Mining bee. First ever Trimmers mining bee at the park.
