{"id":8153,"date":"2018-07-17T21:06:32","date_gmt":"2018-07-17T20:06:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=8153"},"modified":"2018-07-17T21:06:32","modified_gmt":"2018-07-17T20:06:32","slug":"insect-armageddon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=8153","title":{"rendered":"Insect Armageddon"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve been thinking about insect armageddon a bit over the last few days.\u00a0 With one of these rare very hot summers (by that I mean no rain and consistent sunny days) I have been out in the garden a lot.\u00a0 There has been a lot of talk of insect armageddon<\/a> over the last year or so.\u00a0 As more flowers have come out (and due to the very long cold winter many are late) I’ve been examining the insect population.\u00a0 Or rather lack of it.\u00a0 Earlier on in the year bumblebees were out on my thistle (below) which they love.<\/p>\n

\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/cuckoo-bee.jpg\"<\/p>\n

To be fair the plant is past its best but insects there are none.\u00a0 Another plant they love is the sage.\u00a0 This year its noticeably had less flowers, but also very few bees visiting.\u00a0 Another herb they love is oregano.\u00a0 Bees and hoverflies fight over the small mauve flowers.\u00a0 This years visitors are almost absent although the flowers have only just come out.\u00a0 Encouragingly there were two honeybees on the flowers earlier.\u00a0 Its really rare to see a honeybee at all.\u00a0 Its not just bees but hoverflies, flies and the irritating midges that live in the vegetable patch and only bite you under your clothes and you don’t notice the bites for 24 hours are also in low numbers.\u00a0 There are very few social wasps, I have yet to to see any solitary bees or many of the more unusual social wasps or parasitic wasps.\u00a0 When we went to the highlands in the first week of June there were myriad insects of all sizes and types where we were staying but few elsewhere.\u00a0 Our car had few insects on its number plate something that has continued since and was noticeable last year.<\/p>\n

Another strange thing is that both my neighbours had bumble bee nests along my boundary.\u00a0 Both have disappeared something I found in the past when I had a nest on my compost heap.\u00a0 Logically I would expect them to last out the whole summer.<\/p>\n

This is all anecdotal but does suggest a drop in numbers.\u00a0 This has very serious implications for the natural world and for us.\u00a0 We need these pollinators.\u00a0 I’m hoping that the strange weather we went straight from winter to summer may have something to do with it and next year numbers will recover.\u00a0 However I fear its pollution and climate change.<\/p>\n

Neil<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve been thinking about insect armageddon a bit over the last few days.\u00a0 With one of these rare very hot summers (by that I mean no rain and consistent sunny days) I have been out in the garden a lot.\u00a0 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[216,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bees","category-food"],"yoast_head":"\nInsect Armageddon - The oil lamp - shining God's light on peak oil<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=8153\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=8153\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=8153\",\"name\":\"Insect Armageddon - 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