One of the UK's rarest insects thriving on remote Scottish Island
Ten colonies of some of our rarest insects - the 'northern collettes' have been discovered on a RSBP reserve in north Uist. The collettes (or mining bee) burrows into soft ground where it builds it's nest and stores nectar and pollen for it's larvae. They are different from bumble and honey bees as they don't have workers and are solitary creatures, although they do nest together in bee equivalents of rookeries. They mostly nest in gently sloping sand banks and dunes, close to meadows, which is why they're believed to be thriving on Uist. The island is home to a huge range of wild flowers due to the shelly sand.
[via the RSPB]
Jamie Boyle, RSPB Scotland's Uist warden, said: 'This is really great news and extremely encouraging for this struggling and very rare species. As well as in the Uists, there are only a few other isolated UK locations that the northern colletes bee occurs, such as on the Ayrshire coast - where it was first discovered in the UK more than a century ago - on the Cumbrian coast, on Irvine Moor and on Machrihanish as well as off the northern coast of Ireland.'
The bee is listed on the UK's Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP), which is why the discovery of these colonies is so exciting.
