Good bee news from Amsterdam, but …

This video from England says about itself:

Miner bee. Dasypoda altercator characterised by its hairy yellow legs.

A solitary miner bee digs out its hole with its hairy I think back legs.

On 19 October 2014, Remco Daalder, Amsterdam city ecologist, was awarded the Jan Wolkers Prize. This prize is named after famous Dutch artist and author, including about natural history, Jan Wolkers. The Jan Wolkers Prize is for the best natural history book of the year in the Netherlands. Remco Daalder’s book is about swifts.

The prize was awarded in Naturalis museum in Leiden. Remco Daalder said there that things went well for bees in Amsterdam. ‘A threefold increase since ten years ago’.

A 21 September 2014 report from Amsterdam daily Het Parool says that this year, three bee species have been seen for the first time ever in Amsterdam: Heriades truncorum; Chelostoma rapunculi; and Osmia caerulescens.

Het Parool writes, interviewing Remco Daalder’s colleague, Arie Koster (translated):

My first observation is that things go very well with the wild bees in the city, I’m pretty excited. Bees which were rare fifteen years ago I find in various places now. Dasypoda altercator, Colletes daviesanus and red-footed leaf-cutter bees are now numerous. “According to Koster a field like this twenty years ago was unthinkable.

“Everything was mowed down and city gardens were sprayed with poison. In the eighties, wild bees in the city were dying. Mid-nineties, there was change and many municipalities began with ecological management. Apparently, the past fifteen years also made a big impact. I notice the effect”.

However, meanwhile, in the Dutch countryside still lots of insecticides are used, killing many honeybees.

72 bee species in Amsterdam: here.