Hitchin Wildlife

 Bee Hotels Red Mason Bee One way of encouraging wildlife in to your garden is to install a bee hotel, you can either buy one or make your own & I have had a go with several different kinds which I will tell you about below, but first of all a bit about bees... A Bit About Bees Most of us know about Honey Bees and Bumble Bees, but there are many other types too, a lot of which are known as "solitary bees" as they do not nest in colonies. In the UK there is just one species of Honey Bee, 25 species of Bumble Bees but about 250 solitary bees. All of our bees need help because of the very worrying decline of insects: so if you have a garden please plant bee-friendly plants and maybe install a bee hotel. The two commonest occupants of bee hotels are Red Mason bees and Leaf Cutter Bees: if you see little round circles missing from the edge of rose leaves then you have been visited by Leaf Cutter bees.  Leaf Cutter Bee Another bee more unusual bee found in Hitchin is the Large

Ladybirds in Hitchin Cemetery Everyone likes a ladybird and we become familiar with them from an early age with Ladybird books being part of a lot of people's early years. The usual image of ladybirds is bright orangey-red with black polka dots. When we come across one they are generally happy to walk across your finger and allow close views and l adybirds and are regarded as gardener's friends as they eat aphids, what's not to like?  Ladybirds are all over the cemetery and here are some lovely 7-Spot Ladybirds on my hand.   There are actually around 50 species  of ladybird in the UK and half are comparatively larger and "conspicuous" and the others are "inconspicuous", being really tiny. One species which quite a few people have heard of is the Harlequin Ladybird, this is an invasive species from Asia first spotted in England in 2004 and is now over the whole of the UK. Harlequins are vigorous feeders and out-compete our native species, especially the 2