Environment

Is there an insect hibernating in my beehive? Readers’ nature queries

Ethna Viney on foxes, meadow pipits, money spiders and red-stalked bolete mushrooms

What Simon Ó Cróinín discovered when he opened his beehive

Ethna Viney
Sat Nov 3 2018 - 06:00

I'm a beekeeper. Recently I opened a hive that had been empty during the summer and found this inside. I wonder is there an insect hibernating there? – Simon Ó Cróinín, Ráth Chairn, Co na Mí 
It's the nest of the patchwork leaf-cutter bee. Each bundle of leaves is a cell that contains an egg and pollen to feed the larva, which will pupate over winter and the bee will emerge in spring.

One of Dolly O’Reilly’s visiting foxes

As I watched a documentary about vampires I heard scratching at the window. It was one of my visiting foxes harvesting midges from the window pane. – Dolly O'Reilly, Sherkin Island, Co Cork

A meadow pipit’s nest in Galway

Mountaineering Ireland had its autumn gathering in Clonbur, and while hillwalking on Maumtrasna, Co Galway, we found this nest, which we thought might have been home to a family of meadow pipits. – Helen Lawless, Blanchardstown, Dublin 15 
It does look like a meadow pipit's nest.

Sheet webs of tiny money spiders in John Harrington’s garden

Can you shed some light on the floss covering our garden? – John Harrington, Coonagh, Limerick 
They are the sheet webs of tiny money spiders, linyphia spp, which start out as domed webs and get flattened by air loaded with humidity or dew.

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I have been supporting a flock of sparrows and every time they come to feed a couple of chaffinches accompany them, returning to perch close to them on the garden wall. – Pat Kearney, Claremorris, Co Mayo 
This may have been an instance of cross-feeding, where the chaffinch nest was close to the sparrow nest and the sparrow parents responded to the nestlings' call. Or a case of orphaned chaffinch nestlings adopted by the sparrows.

The poisonous mushroom Catherine Rice found

On Mount Leinster I came across this yellow-capped mushroom. – Catherine Rice Jenkinstown, Co Kilkenny 
It's the red-stalked bolete, also called the bitter beech bolete, and is poisonous. It has a symbiotic relationship with beech and oak.

Ethna Viney welcomes observations and photographs at Thallabawn, Louisburgh, Co Mayo, F28 F978, or by email at viney@anu.ie. Please include a postal address.