When is a bee not a bee?

This week I am on a field trip organised through my latest Open University module: S295 The Biology of Survival. Our final topic is on pollination, and an optional course is being run to support us in running a short project that is submitted as our final course assignment and also contributes to the overall module grade.  The aim of this week is to give us confidence in identifying plants and insects and recording their interactions, so that we can formulate and test a hypothesis in our project.

Arriving last night, we had a brief introduction to the subject in an evening lecture and looked at the different parts of a flower. Today we concentrated more on insects, and spent two long sessions outdoors. This morning we walked around the site and caught various insects for identification. We learned that if it looks like a bee it probably isn't, as hoverflies also look rather bee-like! Once you learn a bit more though, it's fairly easy to distinguish them by the eyes, wings (with a U-shape and 'false' veins - photo to the right is a hoverfly) and behaviour. Some samples were taken back to the lab where we got the chance to look at diagnostic features more closely and worked through a key. There were also some specimens that we could look at with a hand lens or microscope.

This afternoon we spent more time looking at the interactions of the insects - were they visiting flowers at different life stages, how long were they there for, etc.  This evening the class came together to pool our ideas and start to think about ideas for a practical investigation.  One of these will be taken forward tomorrow when we get the chance to trial some field work.

The weather has been absolutely stunning for early April, and I'm wishing I packed a sun hat rather than waterproofs! The warm weather has been great for our work too though, as it means the insects are active despite it still being quite early in the season. An interesting course so far, with a great bunch of people and hopefully it will enable me to produce a better quality project at the end of it.