Don't worry, bee happy!

SUDDENLY the weather is warmer and huge queen bumblebees can be spotted in and around your gardens.

- By ALAN WRIGHT

These whoppers will be around for a week or two before they get down to finding a nest and producing a whole new set of pollinators to help our garden flowers.

One certainly caught the eye of my 12-week-old pup, who is finding everything so exciting.

On the bee theme, I was working at our Brockholes Nature Reserve, close to Preston, and I was tasked with creating 'cliffs' in the sandy banks, which will provide home for solitary bees.

The banking is quite steep and covered in grass and other plants, so some bare sandy soil needs to be exposed for the mining bees, who dig into them to create nests.

On warm sunny days these exposed areas will be hives of activity for Andrena genus bees, 65 species that make up the largest bee group in the United Kingdom.