Sometimes we only notice brambles (Rubus fruticosus) when they are covered in delicious blackberries, or perhaps when we get caught or scratched by their formidable thorns (below).

However, their flowers are I think, very beautiful in a modest sort of way, and brambles can be in flower from May until to September in the United Kingdom, making them a valuable resource for insects in search of nectar and pollen.

Bramble flowers are visited by a wide range of pollinators, including bees, butterflies, hoverflies and many other species of flies.

In early June this year (2024), I came across a huge dense clump of bramble covered in flowers and teeming with insects. The plants were tight up against a hedgerow, at the edge of a large meadow in an SSSI in Bedfordshire. I had to fight my way up to it, getting cut by the thorns and stung by nettles! But these abrasions were well worth it in order to photograph the many different bees and flies, nectaring on the profusion of flowers.

I soon started to get to work, photographing the bees with my macro lens. There were bees of all shapes and sizes, honeybees and bumblebees, workers and queens. Contrast the size of the large buff-tailed bumblebee queen with the small early bumblebee worker (below).

Here are a selection of the hard-working hymenopterans, together with a few dipterans (bee flies). It is not a representative sample of what species were there as I tended to focus on the biggest or slowest individuals. But I also picked out a few small worker bumblebees and honeybees.

The Tree Bumblebee, B. hypnorum (below) is a recent natural colonist that has rapidly expanded its range in the UK over the past decade.

I have not attempted to identify them all; there are some cuckoos I think. N.B.  Cuckoo bumblebees are generally less hairy than bone fide bumblebees and have pointier abdomens.

Honeybees are my favourites! Below.

Some flies look like bees! Volucella bombylans is a large hoverfly which has evolved to look rather like a bumblebee; there are three different varieties, as I described in a previous blog: Polymorphic mimics: flies that look like bumblebees. This is Volucella bombylans var. bombylans, that has an orange-red tail (below), and tries to look a bit like the Red-tailed Bumblebee, Bombus lapidarius

Finally, I will finish with a couple of photos to try and show the abundance and diversity of the pollinators visiting this valuable plant species.

All photographs by Raymond JC Cannon, in and around Felmersham gravel pits SSSI, Bedfordshire, England.

Reference

Wignall, V. R., Arscott, N. A., Nudds, H. E., Squire, A., Green, T. O., & Ratnieks, F. L. (2020). Thug life: bramble (Rubus fruticosus L. agg.) is a valuable foraging resource for honeybees and diverse flower‐visiting insects. Insect Conservation and Diversity, 13(6), 543-557.