Is there such a thing as a cute insect? Well, yes, there most definitely is because I saw one last week – a bee-fly; a little rotund ‘furry’ beast with an impossibly long proboscis.

My garden is a fine place for spotting wildlife – not because it is especially rich in creatures, but more because I spend a lot of my time there, sitting and observing. And thus, so was my bee-fly encounter; one of those unforgettable garden nature moments.

The sun was shining when I noticed this most peculiar looking insect hovering in the air right above my garden chair. It hung for a second or two, then suddenly zipped upwards, before returning to its original hovering station; a process repeated several times. It was the long snout that really stood out, which is used as a probe for sipping nectar, a bit like a hummingbird’s long bill.

They are fascinating creatures and despite their attractive appearance have a rather gruesome life cycle where the female lays her eggs in the nests of solitary bees, wasps and beetles. Or to be more accurate, she flicks her eggs into their burrows. The eggs hatch and the bee-fly larvae crawl further into the nest where they attack the host bee or wasp larvae, feeding upon their bodily fluids and eventually killing them.

Bumblebees, too, are showing in good numbers now as the weather gets warmer and I find it almost hypnotic watching their busy endeavours as they buzz around the garden. They are amongst our most absorbing insects with their haphazard flight lending an almost comical appearance.

There is still much to learn about the natural history of bumblebees but what we do know is that all is not well with our populations and already two species in the UK have become extinct in the last 70 years and others have declined dramatically. The main reasons are thought to be habitat loss and agricultural intensification.

There are 19 different species in Scotland but in most areas only six are common and widespread – the white-tailed, buff-tailed, early, garden, common carder, and red-tailed bumblebees. All are attractive, but the red-tailed bumblebee is my favourite by a country mile because of the striking contrast between the red on the tip of the abdomen and the shiny blackness of the rest of the body. Another fascinating one is the common carder bee, so named because it knits grass and moss together to make its nest on the ground.

They also tend to live most interesting lives, with most bumblebees having a similar social system to honey bees incorporating workers, drones and a queen. However, instead of the many thousands of individuals found in a typical honey bee hive, bumblebee colonies usually only comprise of a few hundred individuals at most. Another key difference is that each colony exists for less than a year and dies out in autumn, with only the young mated queens surviving over the winter in readiness for starting a new colony the following spring, which is often sited underground in a mouse hole or other crevice.

But behind the benign façade of busy bees bumbling amongst the flowerbeds it is all too convenient to forget just what important creatures they are to the overall health of our environment. Many of our plants rely upon their prolific pollinating activities, and of course animals depend upon plants, either directly or indirectly, for their survival too.
So, if there are no bumblebees around, then everything goes to pot, including agricultural production to feed ourselves.

Or to put it into other words, our very existence depends upon them.