Life and Death in the Apiary

Not a rare or unusual spider, but she caught my attention. First by her boldness. We were beekeeping; a routine inspection, but it is swarm season: if we find a colony preparing to swarm, we find the queen, take her and a modest retinue of workers out of the hive and put them into a half-size box, a 'nucleus hive'. This usually convinces them that they have actually swarmed and they set about building up a new colony in their new home. In the original hive, meanwhile, the bulk of the workers raise a new queen to replace their departed matriarch

It pays to be prepared. We carry the nucleus ('nuc') box with us from hive to hive during the inspections, so that we can take immediate action, if necessary. I put it down on the grass and, within seconds, she was on the side of it, investigating the new arrival. Wildlife is usually more circumspect in the face of a changed environment; the fastest to react are not always the likeliest to survive

I was also puzzled by a six legged creature that was pretty obviously a spider. Sweating in a bee suit, in steaming up glasses, behind a veil, the details of her posture were not as clear as they are in this picture. As one wildlife organization rather charmingly puts it, "It likes to sunbathe and typically holds its front two pairs of legs together pointing forwards." Sunbathing is exactly what she appears to be doing

The same web site asserts that "During mating the male presents the female with a carefully wrapped insect as a present." How endearing. Only when I referred to a rather more scientific source did I learn that the female is inclined to eat the male after mating and the 'gift' is a strategy for assuaging her hunger and increasing his chances of survival

It is a Nursery Web Spider (Pisaura mirabilis). So called because, just before its eggs hatch, it weaves a cone-shaped web 'nursery' for them, seals them inside, and sits guard until the spiderlings emerge. I wonder what it says when they ask about their father

The bees are in good heart, and no swarms, but a very low level of brood infection remains in one, possibly two, colonies. I anticipate that the small number of infected larvae wiil be enough to condemn the entire brood to the fire when the Inspector calls on Wednesday. Like the male spider, a degree of stoicism is called for