Science & Nature

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DRAWN TO THE LIGHT

Lime Hawk-moth (Mimas tiliae) Gillian Nash

Hawk-moths are our largest British moths, some having wingspans of around 100mm. Eighteen species have been recorded in the UK, half of which are resident and several of those are commonly seen in southern counties – less so further north. The remainder are scarce or rare and most are migrant species, being unable to complete their life cycles in our climate of cool winters. All have powerful flight and those that feed, do so whilst hovering amid night-scented flowers such as nicotiana.

The spectacular Lime Hawk-moth is possibly one of the less often encountered resident species, with clearly distinguishing features making it unlikely to be confused with others in the group. Exquisite shades of olive or deep green and fawn form a banded pattern which serves it well as camouflage amongst dappled foliage or against the trunks of trees where it may sometimes be found in its motionless daytime state. Its usual flight season is April to July. A reddish-brown form with the same wing pattern is sometimes seen. The striking larvae sport several diagonal pale yellow stripes along their sides, each with a red dot. A blue and red tail horn adorns the final segment of its body. It is not clear what the purpose of this ‘horn’ is, although thought to serve as a distraction to predators, drawing attention away from the head giving more chance of survival from attack. When fully fed it may be seen on open ground purposefully searching for a suitable place to pupate and once selected, its vivid green colour will change to a dull pink.

Unlike most other Hawk-moth species, the adults are unable to feed – all required nutrients are contained within their bodies on emergence from the overwintered pupa, formed underground near the foodplants on which the larvae fed sometime from July to September. The habitat is varied and it may be seen anywhere the larval foodplants grow, including both rural and urban situations where birch, elm, lime and alder are found.

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RIVERS

Simon Ford, Land and Nature Adviser and Gardener

Sherborne gets its name from the old English for ‘clear stream’. The River Yeo, rises near Charlton Horethorne and flows down the delightful meandering valley through Poyntington and Oborne. It then passes in to Sherborne Castle lake and out through Purlieu Meadows on its way to Yeovil and the Somerset Levels and ultimately the Severn Estuary in Bridgwater Bay.

Sadly nowadays, it is unlikely people would describe the river as ‘clear’ and for much of the time it is quite murky with plentiful silt. A few years ago, I helped the Dorset Wildlife Trust with a project called ‘Riverfly’, where I took samples of insect life, which were collected and identified from Purlieu Meadows. Sadly the few species I found, showed it was not in good condition and affected by nutrient enrichment. We do see occasional grey heron, little egret (above) and I once saw a kingfisher there, but ubiquitous mallard ducks are most commonly encountered.

Recently, the Sherborne Science Café hosted a talk by a hydrologist called Dr Paul Webster, who gave a fascinating talk about where our drinking water comes from and flood risk in the local area. I hadn’t realised that there is a plaque in the Abbey from the early 1700s describing a flood which swept through the north door of the Abbey and burst out of the south door, leaving the ancient building under nearly 3ft of water! This water would have come down the Combe Valley, under Newell and through Sherborne Boys School before flooding the lower part of the town.

Nowadays, we are suffering many more extreme weather events due to climate change, whether it is the hottest, driest, wettest or windiest year ever recorded. Many people will remember the January 2014 flooding on the Somerset Levels, where villages like Muchelney, were cut off for weeks or the increasingly regular floods of houses in Bewdley and Tewkesbury on the River Severn. These events are very sad for those affected, but

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have happened for centuries. It is important to look at why flooding seems to be getting worse and not just expect even bigger and more elaborate flood defences to be built.

This brings me back to things we can all do, which can help improve water quality, wildlife and reduce flooding. In Sherborne, we have seen a great deal of development and housing on green field sites, with acres of impermeable roofs, roads and pavements. I also see many people paving over their gardens to create parking areas. All of this prevents rain water percolating through the soil and into the aquifer and instead, causes it to rush across the surface, flooding anything in the way (such as houses in Coldharbour and Newlands).

Our farmland also has an extremely important role to play. Old pastures and rough grassland and woodland do a wonderful job of absorbing water, but we now see the ploughing up of fields next to rivers and on steep ground to plant arable crops and in particular maize. This ground is often highly compacted and the soil (and any chemicals applied), is washed off into our rivers. When people talk about rivers being ‘silted up’, it is actually valuable top soil which has been washed off surrounding land, damaging fisheries and wildlife and reducing the capacity of our rivers.

In the past, just like on the coast, we have thought we can engineer our way out of flooding and erosion, but we are now realising that it is much better to work with nature. You will hear the words ‘slow the flow’, and this technique is being increasingly used to help reduce flooding downstream. Small woody barriers are created along many smaller tributaries, creating ‘leaky dams’. These reduce peak floods and allow the water to remain on the land and not in people’s houses. Beavers have been re-introduced to a number or places in Devon, Somerset and more recently Dorset, where they do something similar, with their incredibly sharp teeth. (They are a native herbivorous species to Britain, but were sadly wiped out by the Middle Ages.) Rivers are being allowed to reconnect to flood plains, which naturally hold millions of gallons of water (although we must stop the practise of building on these areas). My old employer, the National Trust, is taking forward some very beneficial river restoration projects on properties such as Montacute, Lytes Cary and Kingston Lacy and other organisations such as Dorset Wildlife Trust are doing similar.

One of the biggest contributions to improving our rivers and reducing flooding, can be made by landowners (with help from environmental grants). Ploughing of river margins, steep valley sides and floodplains causes significant issues, but fencing off a strip which is allowed to grow long grasses, trees and flowers, helps to reduce sediment and pollution and slows flood water. For householders, try to keep grass and flower beds and resist the urge to pave or concrete it.

My experience in projects I have been involved with on Exmoor and in the Cotswolds, North Devon, Somerset and elsewhere has shown how small interventions and changes to land management can help reduce flooding and bring back some wonderful freshwater wildlife. Remember that even things we do in Sherborne, can help all the way downstream.

It’s time now to go and have a wander down the river and see what wildlife I can find.

Image: YHA Conwey

MAKING NEW HOMES FOR NATURE

Peter Littlewood, Young Peoples Trust for the Environment

With summer coming on fast, we’re likely to see lots more bugs and insects flying and crawling around for the next few months, in the countryside, our gardens and our homes!

But actually, there are a lot fewer than there used to be. Globally, around 40% of all insects are in decline and a third are endangered. They often get overlooked, because creepy-crawlies aren’t necessarily the most appealing of animals. You see lots of greetings cards with cute puppies, kittens or ducklings on them but not so many that feature spiders or wasps or slugs! But more than 95% of all animal species are invertebrates (i.e. not mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians or fish), so they’re enormously important.

Minibeasts are vital to many food webs because they’re the primary food source for many species of birds, amphibians, fish and reptiles. They’re also some of the most important pollinators of crops. And on top of that, many work as ‘nature’s bin men’, breaking down and digesting dead and decaying plant and animal matter and cycling nutrients through our planet’s landbased ecosystems.

Your garden is an amazing place to go on a ‘mini safari’. Get down close to the ground and you’ll see there’s a whole miniature animal kingdom going on under your feet. You’ll find flying insects, like flies, bees, wasps, beetles, butterflies and moths, wingless insects like ants (cool fact: there are around 1.6 million ants for every human on earth!); arachnids like spiders and harvestmen; crustaceans (yes, woodlice are in the same animal family as crabs!); myriapods like centipedes and millipedes; annelids like earthworms; and molluscs like slugs and snails.

Getting children interested in the minibeasts they can find in the garden or the countryside is a fantastic way to open their eyes to just how amazing nature is. And it’s something you can easily do at home, or in a nearby park. Just try turning over a log or rock and see what’s hiding underneath!

One way you could really help, if you have the space in your garden, is to create a bug hotel. It’s easy for your little ones to get involved with the build too. It’s easy to do and requires materials that might otherwise be thrown away. Here’s how:-

When and Where to Build A bug hotel can be built at any time of year. The site of your hotel should be level and the ground must be firm. Make sure it is a good distance away from any vegetable beds.

How To Make Your Own Bug Hotel You need a strong, stable framework, no more than 1 metre high. Old wooden pallets are perfect as they’re sturdy and come with ready-made gaps, but you could improvise by using something as small as an old flower pot or wooden box as your container, depending on what you have available. As long as it’s reasonably weatherproof, it’s fine!

Make sure that you have a ventilation space underneath to stop the bug hotel from soaking up too much moisture from the ground.

If you’re using palettes, you could lay bricks (the ones with holes in them) on the ground as a sturdy base, especially at the corners, leaving spaces in between some of the bricks for ventilation and to provide entrances for animals. Then add 3 or 4 layers of wooden pallets on top of the bricks.

If you don’t have palettes or bricks then, as noted above, an old flower pot or wooden box would be fine. You could raise it off the ground using a few stones or thick twigs.

Whatever type of framework you’re using, you now need to fill the gaps inside it, making sure you provide lots of different nooks and crannies, crevices, tunnels and cosy beds. Here are some ideas of how natural materials can be used: •Dead wood and loose bark - homes for beetles, centipedes, spiders and woodlice •Hollow bamboo canes, dead hollow stems cut from shrubs and herbaceous plants and drilled logs – provide holes and small tubes for solitary bees •Stones, tiles and old terracotta pots – provide larger holes and the cool, damp conditions preferred by frogs and toads •Dry leaves, sticks and straw - homes for ladybirds, other beetles and bugs •Corrugated cardboard – for lacewings •Pine cones – provide small crevices for minibeasts to hide and nest in •Dry leaves – help mimic a natural forest floor

Add a roof to keep your bug house relatively dry. You could use old roof tiles or old planks covered with roofing felt, or even some old plastic sheeting, but make sure it’s weighted down so it doesn’t blow away.

If you can, surround your bug hotel with nectar-rich flowers – essential food for butterflies, bees and other pollinating insects.

Think of a name for your bug hotel and create a sign for it. (This makes no difference to the bugs, but it can be a great source of entertainment for the humans!)

NATUROPATHIC BEEKEEPING

Paula Carnell, Beekeeping Consultant, Writer and Speaker

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Ihave been asked a lot recently, ‘what exactly is naturopathic beekeeping?’. As more bees are appearing in our gardens and we think about the summer months, more and more people start pondering about bees, why are they suffering, how do we save them, and should I get a hive? I started sharing my techniques for beekeeping several years ago, and back in 2019, I decided I needed to put my training online, thankfully in time for the massive transference of our lives to ‘online’ in 2020!

Many people imagine beekeeping to be the most natural of hobbies or animal husbandry, pottering on sunny days at the end of our gardens or in orchards, dressed in white suit and veil, puffing a smoker and extracting the odd frame of honey now and again. Unfortunately, this is far from reality for too many beekeepers these days. Two hundred years of ‘advances’ have now made ‘beekeepers the biggest risk to bees’ in the opinion of leading Swiss bee scientist, Professor Peter Neumann.

The varroa mite was a tragic influx of a parasitic mite into the Apis mellifera community, transferred from the Asian honeybee who has had hundreds, if not thousands of years to adapt to it. Millions of bees

in hives were wiped out during the 1990s when it first appeared in Europe and the UK. Quite quickly, chemical treatments were developed and used with gusto, encouraged by the massive ‘mite drop’ noticed by the beekeepers on their observation boards as the drenching chemical treatments forced the mites to fall to their deaths through the open mesh floors. Some of the ingredients of these treatments are based on natural components, thyme oil, oxalic acid and other essential oils. Like many beekeepers in my early days, although reluctant to use any treatments, I took advice from my mentor and the wider beekeeping community and used thymol, a ‘natural’ treatment. Like many I imagined it to be a drop of pure thyme essential oil, however, to give you an idea, the chemical formula of thymol is C10H14O, and remembering Jamie Oliver’s message, ‘if you can’t pronounce it, don’t eat it’ hydroxy isopropyl methylbenzene doesn’t sound like the kind of thing I’d eat.

My curiosity sent me down a rabbit hole of investigations and in particular a wonderful bee biology textbook by Clarence H Collison. His chapter, ‘The impact of pesticides’ was shocking reading as it wasn’t about the pesticides bees were exposed to on agricultural crops, but the ones used inside the hives by beekeepers. Queen failure and infertility in drones were just some of the consequences of using such treatments. My Bee Team member & octogenarian Joe Bleasdale, has been treatment-free beekeeping since 2000, saying that if the treatment leaves a single live varroa mite, then we’ve now bred a miticide-resistant variant!

Weighing up the pros and cons of treating disease leads me to naturopathic beekeeping. During my recovery from 7 years bed- and wheelchair-bound with Ehlers Danlos syndrome, being a patient of Lucy Jones of Myrobalan Clinic introduced me to herbal medicine and naturopathy. Having successfully helped me to walk again and no longer need a wheelchair, I began my studies with the International Register of Consultant Herbalists (IRCH) and module 2 was ‘Naturopathy’. I absolutely LOVED this module as it all made perfect sense to me. Many fellow students came from traditional western medicine backgrounds and so struggled to unlearn much of what they’d previously been taught, namely ‘germ theory’.

Naturopathy’s foundations are based on ‘terrain theory’, the belief that we each have within us the potential for health or illness, and it is the combination of the triad of health, chemical, emotional, and structural. It is also important to understand natures ‘natural force’ or vitality. We have all experienced seeing a lack of life force in flowers dying after being picked, or someone like myself whilst ill. Naturopathy is all about restoring the vital force which is a powerful ingredient in restoring anybody to health. Nature is all about balance, and just as we have witnessed the devastating destruction of Chernobyl restored to a natural wildlife haven after a few short decades, our bodies, and bee’s bodies are the same. The bees need a toxic chemical-free environment, no stress (transportation and interference from beekeepers) and the ability to grow healthy strong larvae with fully formed wings. A safe warm hive with a ‘propolis envelope’ surrounding the colony and a ready supply of nectar and pollen from healthy plants ensures the bees’ ability to heal themselves is literally ‘vital’.

We now have generations of beekeepers tied to the habits of treating their bees with chemicals, and a new generation of people doing the conventional training and questioning its viability and sense. These are the people I help. The thought of interfering in such a wise being’s environment, the hive, feels wrong. We intuitively know that the bees are showing us the error of our ways. Almost by mass suicide, the bees are found dead inside and outside their hives. Annual losses of colonies are expected and a ready supply of replacement queens softens the blow. Naturopathic beekeepers are not experiencing the same losses – their colonies steadily increase year on year, they produce more honey, eat less themselves, surround themselves in propolis and most importantly for the novice beekeeper, they sting less! If we are working in alignment with nature, the bees don’t feel they have to defend their hives. Surely it makes sense that bees shouldn’t have to fight to the death when sharing their honey harvest with their keeper?

Appreciation, understanding and gratitude are the tools of a naturopathic beekeeper. We’re not stupid though, we still wear suits and gloves out of healthy respect for a large group of 50,000 hormonal females that have the vitality to groom themselves of the pesky varroa mite!

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With May being a month of bee swarms and expansion, Paula is running a free online challenge for new and experienced beekeepers who may be interested in becoming part of the new breed of naturopathic beekeepers. Visit courses.paulacarnell.com for details.