Intimate Embrace. Mining Bees, Andrena sp., Jammerdaal, Venlo, The Netherlands
I walked in the hills rolling down southeast of Venlo from Germany into the valley through which runs the Meuse River. Those hills are steeper than you might think and a number of the dales - partly dug out for clay and gravel in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries - are now filled with water and make for pleasant swimming holes. The area is called the Jammerdaal - Wailing Dale. Tradition has it that here Ambiorix, a chieftain of the Eburones, and his courageous men in 54 BCE utterly destroyed Julius Caesar's XIV legion and 5 cohorts. If you listen carefully you can still hear those Roman soldiers wailing if the Moon is right and the forest dark enough and especially if you've had a beer or glass of wine in the fine restaurant De Bovenste Molen (=The Upper Watermill) not far away. Caesar swore revenge but Ambiorix escaped across the Rhine into what is today Germany. Ambiorix is now something of a national hero in Belgium.
This morning I heard no wailing but only Spring sounds, such as the buzz of Mining Bees, hundreds of them digging their tunnel nests in the warm sand. The main photo show two of them engaging to fill a nest with offspring. Top right gives a Bee and shows the entrance to a nest.
Intimate Embrace. Mining Bees, Andrena sp., Jammerdaal, Venlo, The Netherlands
I walked in the hills rolling down southeast of Venlo from Germany into the valley through which runs the Meuse River. Those hills are steeper than you might think and a number of the dales - partly dug out for clay and gravel in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries - are now filled with water and make for pleasant swimming holes. The area is called the Jammerdaal - Wailing Dale. Tradition has it that here Ambiorix, a chieftain of the Eburones, and his courageous men in 54 BCE utterly destroyed Julius Caesar's XIV legion and 5 cohorts. If you listen carefully you can still hear those Roman soldiers wailing if the Moon is right and the forest dark enough and especially if you've had a beer or glass of wine in the fine restaurant De Bovenste Molen (=The Upper Watermill) not far away. Caesar swore revenge but Ambiorix escaped across the Rhine into what is today Germany. Ambiorix is now something of a national hero in Belgium.
This morning I heard no wailing but only Spring sounds, such as the buzz of Mining Bees, hundreds of them digging their tunnel nests in the warm sand. The main photo show two of them engaging to fill a nest with offspring. Top right gives a Bee and shows the entrance to a nest.