Tweet
I was looking at my new pond (OK it's a dustbin lid) and I saw a bee walking on the rim that suddenly seemed to launch itself backwards in the water, it swam to the rock that is wedged against the edge and got out and I thought hells bells, it's got one of those mites.
Glasses out and on hands and knees could see that it was in fact a small creamy yellow spider hanging on for grim death. The bee having dried itself couldn't seem to take off and I managed to dislodge the spider. Then saw where it had been clutching the bee, one wing was all tattered so the poor thing was doomed and in fact not 5 minutes later a bigger ground hunting spider zoomed down the rockery straight for its prey.
Lots of googling later I've found it was a crab spider and it would have poisoned the bee but I suspect that it being such a small spider it wasn't effective enough?
Since that post about bee mites I've been checking out any bees I see but this is the first time I've seen the bee+spider scenario.
There do seem to be a great many more spiders of all sorts around this Spring - more than usual I think, hope this isn't going to be another growing problem for our poor old bees.
best
Sue
Glasses out and on hands and knees could see that it was in fact a small creamy yellow spider hanging on for grim death. The bee having dried itself couldn't seem to take off and I managed to dislodge the spider. Then saw where it had been clutching the bee, one wing was all tattered so the poor thing was doomed and in fact not 5 minutes later a bigger ground hunting spider zoomed down the rockery straight for its prey.
Lots of googling later I've found it was a crab spider and it would have poisoned the bee but I suspect that it being such a small spider it wasn't effective enough?
Since that post about bee mites I've been checking out any bees I see but this is the first time I've seen the bee+spider scenario.
There do seem to be a great many more spiders of all sorts around this Spring - more than usual I think, hope this isn't going to be another growing problem for our poor old bees.
best
Sue
Comment