Helping bees and wasps

Wednesday 20 August 2025

Heathland Heroes

https://www.facebook.com/worcestershirewildlifetrust

https://www.instagram.com/worcswt/

We are creating the county's largest block of heathland and connecting 600 acres of habitat. Join our Saving Worcestershire's Heathland's project team as they bring you the latest news and information from this amazing project

Heath sand wasp by Wendy Carter

From sand wasps to pantaloon bees, Andy explains how we're helping insects...

The word Hymenoptera comes from the Greek, meaning membraned wings, and describes the order of insects we know as bees, wasps, ants and sawflies. Animals from these groups are visible and important members of any heathland community and if you look closely enough, you'll see lots of them across The Devil's Spittleful and adjacent nature reserves.

The dry, sandy soils provide the perfect conditions for burrowing insects, which includes species like minotaur beetles as well as many bees, wasps and ants. Whilst you may be familiar with the black and yellow social wasps, their numbers pale against the numbers of solitary wasps - individuals that care just for their own offspring rather than those of a whole colony. Many of these create burrows in which to lay eggs. They typically catch other insects, paralyse them and drag them down into these burrows; the unfortunate prey is then food for the wasp larvae. If you visit a Worcestershire heathland, keep a look out for the heath sand wasp Ammophila pubescens (see main photo above) - a handsome black and orange species that hunts caterpillars to feed to the young. They've even been known to provision several nests at the same time - busy little insects!

A pantaloon bee digging into a sandy burrow - the head of the bee is in the nest but the very large, pollen-covered legs are obvious. The abdomen is dark with one complete white band of hairs near the bottom and two broken white bands higher on the body.

Some bees also burrow into the sand to create chambers for their young to grow up in. They're also important pollinators so if you don't see their mini-molehills of sand as they excavate their burrows, look for them feeding and gathering pollen from flowers. Unlike the wasps, the bees provision their larvae with pollen and they usually have specific flowers that they need. Scarce black mining bees Andrena nigrospina, for example, require pollen only from wild radish. Pantaloon bees Dasypoda hirtipes, on the other hand, take their pollen from the yellow composite flowers of the Asteraceae family - cat's-ear, hawk-bits, fleabane and ragwort. Just in case you're wondering, the hairs on the legs of pantaloon bees really do make them look like they're wearing a pair of ballooning trousers - these hairs are how mining bees gather and hold pollen.

Even some species of bumblebee, such as buff-tailed bumbles Bombus Terrestris create their colonies in underground holes, often old mouse nests.

Long, thin black wasp moving a much larger orb weaver spider along the sand

In a 2004 edition of Worcestershire Record (No 16, Apr 2004, pg 28-29), Michael Archer records 124 different species of Hymenoptera on The Devil’s Spittleful, 15 of which are of national importance. Surveying and monitoring is constantly taking place so perhaps we'll be able to update this article in the near future.

Like all heathland species, however, loss of habitat over many years means that stunning creatures like the pantaloon bee, which may once have been more common, are now rare.

Our work to expand the heathland by restoring land at Blackstone Farm Fields and Dropping Well Farm is helping all sorts of wildlife but especially bees and wasps. Our slow conversion of farmland to heath provides large quantities of nectar and shelter throughout the seasons. Additionally, bare ground is created by ploughing small areas each year and this also provides a flush of annual flowers, such as poppies and wild radish, diversifying the nectar source. Livestock keep vegetation low where needed and we welcome the action of moles and rabbits that scuffs up the ground, creating further bare areas of sand for burrowing species.

A digger scraping top soil from a field and building it up into a bank on the edge of the excavation; it's a winters day white a white sky but it doesn't look very cold

We're also proactive and have created a few embankments with diggers to provide a varied structure and aspects to bare ground. Whilst seemingly artificial. the micro habitat this creates perhaps mimics the actions of more destructive forces, such as boar, bison, large herds of wild horses or severe natural flood, fire and storm events that are now absent on surviving natural landscapes.

It's not just bees and wasps that benefit from these 'bee banks'; plenty of other invertebrates from beetles to centipedes can thrive here. In turn, of course, these might all become food for others - reptiles, birds and even parasites. The foodchain can once again thrive.