GALLERY
Category: HYMENOPTERANS
Bronze fusehorn (Arge ustulata)
Where and when encountered: Dulnain Bridge on 31 May 2024
About: Bronze fusehorns are fairly widespread in England and Wales but much more sporadically distributed in Scotland. The larvae are known to feed on willows, birches, and hawthorn.
Tree bumblebee (Bombus hypnorum)
Where and when encountered: Aviemore on 23 May 2025
About: Tree bumblebees were first recorded in Great Britain as recently as 2001, but they have now spread through all of England and Wales and northwards across much of Scotland.
Blaeberry bumblebee (Bombus monticola)
Where and when encountered: Abernethy Forest on 24 April 2025
About: The blaeberry bumblebee is a predominantly upland species in Great Britain. The flowers of blaeberry are one of their preferred sources of food.
Date range for adult records: 24 April to 31 May
Early bumblebee (Bombus pratorum)
Where and when encountered: Grantown-on-Spey on 11 April 2024
About: Early bumblebees can be found throughout Great Britain. Queens generally emerge from hibernation relatively early in the year, hence their common name.
Forest cuckoo bee (Bombus sylvestris)
Where and when encountered: Grantown-on-Spey on 6 May 2025
About: Forest cuckoo bees, like other cuckoo bees, lay their eggs in the nest of bees of other species (in the case of the forest cuckoo bee, those of Bombus pratorum, B. jonellus, and B. monticola). They may be encountered in most corners of Great Britain, although they are thought to be absent, at least for now, from the very far north.
Editor's note: I am reasonably confident of the species identification of the bee photographed.
Larch spinner (Cephalcia lariciphila)
Where and when encountered: Badaguish on 8 May 2024
About: Larch spinners can be encountered in plantations with larches in various parts of Great Britain. The larvae feed on the young shoots of these trees.
Editor's note: The identification of sawflies is tricky, but I have speculated here on the identification of the insect photographed based on appearance and the individual's persistent examination of a young larch tree.
Birch sawfly (Cimbex femoratus)
Where and when encountered: Nethy Bridge on 4 June 2024
About: Birch sawflies are the largest sawfly found in Great Britain, with a length of up to an inch, and they have a scattered distribution across this region. Their larvae – as suggested by the vernacular name – feed on birch.
Date range for adult records: 4 to 20 June
Heather colletes bee (Colletes succinctus)
Where and when encountered: Carrbridge on 2 September 2021
About: Heather colletes bees can be found in various corners of Great Britain, typically on dry heathland and moorland. They are a non-social bee but often nest in close proximity to others of their species.
Editor's note: The bee photographed here was waiting outside the entrance to a nest hole in a bunker on a golf course.
Common pine sawfly (Diprion pini)
Where and when encountered: Abernethy Forest on 26 August 2021
About: The larvae of this sawfly species feed communally on pines. The species is known to occur in various localities within Great Britain.
Editor's note: One study found that Scots pine trees are able to ramp up their defences on detecting the sex pheromone of this species.
Saxon wasp (Dolichovespula saxonica)
Where and when encountered: Rothiemurchus Estate on 2 June 2021
About: These social wasps construct bauble-like nests from chewed wood fibre, and they site these on a range of structures that includes the branches of understory shrubs and the eaves of houses. They colonized southern England during the latter part of the twentieth century and have since spread as far north as the Scottish Highlands.
Editor's note: The wasp photographed was most likely a Saxon wasp but might instead have been a Norwegian wasp lacking the characteristic red markings of their species.
Hairy wood ant (Formica lugubris)
Where and when encountered: Boat of Garten on 15 May 2024
About: Hairy wood ants can be found in coniferous and mixed woodland from the Scottish Highlands, through the uplands of northern England, and as far south as mid-Wales. They have a preference for more open, sunnier sites within these habitats.
Bicolorous sawfly (Hemichroa australis)
Where and when encountered: Castle Grant on 29 July 2024
About: Bicolorous sawflies can be found in various corners of Great Britain but are less commonly encountered to the north. Their larvae feed on the leaves of alder and birch.
Willughby's leafcutter bee (Megachile willughbiella)
Where and when encountered: Grantown-on-Spey on 28 July 2024
About: Willughby's leafcutter bees can be found in most corners of Great Britain, although their distribution becomes patchier to the north. Females line their nest cells using sections of leaves that they have cut.
Larch sawfly (Pristiphora erichsonii)
Where and when encountered: Abernethy Forest on 7 July 2022
About: Larch sawflies, like many species of sawfly, are majorly under-recorded (on account, in part, of difficulties in confident species-level identification) and so little is known about their true distribution in Great Britain.
Editor's note: I am reasonably confident of the species identification of the sawfly larvae photographed.
Rhogogaster punctulata
Where and when encountered: Abernethy Forest on 1 June 2024
About: Sawflies of the species Rhogogaster punctulata can be found in most corners of Great Britain. The adults feed mainly on small invertebrates, but the larvae are more polyphagous.
Editor's note: The species identification of the sawfly photographed is based on excluding a similar species through the known range.
Rhyssella approximator
Where and when encountered: Grantown-on-Spey on 9 July 2022
About: Members of the species Rhyssella approximator are among the longest wasps to be found in Great Britain. Under-recording of this species means that the distribution within Great Britain is not clear.
Editor's note: I am reasonably confident of the species identification of the wasp photographed, on account of the length (well over five centimetres including the ovipositor) and the coloration.
Giant horntail (Urocerus gigas)
Where and when encountered: Glenbeg Estate on 18 August 2024
About: Giant horntails are wood-boring sawflies whose larvae develop in the wood of conifers such as pines and spruces. They can be found from the far north to the far south of Great Britain.
Common wasp (Vespula vulgaris)
Where and when encountered: Nethy Bridge on 11 May 2024
About: Common wasps are eusocial insects and can be found in a wide variety of habitats and microhabitats from the far north to the far south of Great Britain.
Editor's note: This wasp was chewing wood fibre off the outside of an old whisky barrel, for use in nest construction.
Date range for adult records: 11 May to 12 June
Selected galleries
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