INSECTS
For practical reasons, flies are included in their own section above.
Entomology is the study of insects. In this website we have divided them into easy sections such as Bees & Bumble Bees and Butterflies & Moths. You will immediately realise that this is not a clean nor technical categorisation. Certainly not the latter. But it is an easy one for most of us.
In his book The GARDEN JUNGLE or Gardening to Save the Planet, Dave Goulson laments the decline of many insects in the UK, particularly butterflies and moths. This is attributed mainly to changes in agriculture and the indesdcriminate use of pesticides and herbicides on crops including private gardens. Don't immediately reach for a can of devastating spray. This decline in turn affects the success of predatory species such as birds. Here in Scotland we have the added challenges of climate for insects. But you can be very surprised for what can be found around here.
Goulson's view is both holistic and broad. It is also down on his hands and knees. Close up where you can find an amazing array of beasties all and each with their roles in life. Each competing or sometimes even cooperating. You need to get down there close up too.
INSECTS UNDER THREAT
From time to time we are told that this or that insect is dropping in numbers, Certainly the fate of our local indigenous bees is one of concern, We tend to think that insecticides are soley to blame, While this is one of the causes, it is also controlable and campaigns exist to influence it. We can also grow plants that attract insects and limit mowing to encourage mre diverse environments. But weather changes can also mean problems for breeding insects.
2024 was a noticably bad year for insects such as butterflies and bumblebees, even wasps. Why? It has been put down mainly to changes in temperature and rainfall at critical times for breeding. Gardeners in particular have noticed this decline. Kate Bradbury writing in the BBC Gardeners World magazine of February 2025 refers to the Bumblebee Trust and summarises the situation - focusing on bees. Putting this into print records a specific year and enables us to compare year on year. Hopefully the ensuing summers will be better.
A Tough Year for Bees. Some 51 oer cent of respondentssaw bees less often in 2024 compared to 2023, marking a huge drop in perceived numbers, and more respondents think they saw bees later as compared to earlier in the year. Interestingly, 31 per cent have noticed a change to their garden wioldlife that they attribute to climate change, with observations focused in the decline in beess and invertebrates that have been affected by heavy rain, and the impact of cold spring temperatures ib bees ability to find food and keep their nest going.
This data mirrors national trends - Bumblebee Conservation declared 2024 the worst year on record, with numbers of many common species down including the red-tailed bumblebee by a shocking72 per cent, This was likely due to a combination of factors, including cold temperatures and flooding killing off nests, and flwoers destroyed by heavy and persistant rain.
This all seems to have spurred respondents to do their bit:- 80 per cent now avoid pesticides - 41 per cent of whom are doing so to support bees - and 64 per cent provide bee-friendly plants, with another 23 per cent considering doing so. Another 39 per cent are interested in adding a bee hotel.
While we in West Dunbartonshire have escaped the very severe weather of the areas south of us, we have still noticed the drop in numbers. We still need to be aware of the changes and the implications thereof. You may think a drop in midge numbers a good thing, but so much else is entirely dependent on insects that polinate our flowers and fruit blossoms.
Plants and pollinators use electric fields to find each other
Pollinators and flowers can attract each other with electric fields, researchers have found. This extraordinary relationship is discussed further in the article on the NHM website, a link for which is shown below, and further discussed in the Birds Outside my Window blog.
Some insects, such as hoverflies, are able to detect flowers using these electric fields, while some flowers can use them to sense pollinators and release targeted bursts of scent to draw more of them in.
BIRDS OUTSIDE MY WINDOW - Kate St John : https://www.birdsoutsidemywindow.org/2016/07/18/bees-and-electricity/#:~:text=A%20study%20published%20in%20PNAS%20last%20May%20explains,their%20pollen%20stick%20to%20bees%20through%20static%20electricity.
BRADBURY, KATE : BBC Gardeners World February 2025.: Act Now for Wildlife. A Tough for Bees.
THE GARDEN JUNGLE or Gardening to Save the Planet. Dave Goulson. Vintage books. 2019, ISBN 9781529116281.
INSECTS OF BRITAIN AND WESTERN EUROPE. Chinery, Mark. A Collins Guide. ISBN 000 219137 7. 1986. This is an extraorinarilly comprehensive catalogue of almost every insect, bug and butterfly that we can possibly encounter.
NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM / NHM : https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2021/september/plants-and-pollinators-use-electric-fields-to-find-each-other.html
