A hidden world among the blossom

If you live in one of the fruit growing areas of the country, or even if you just have a fruit tree in the garden, I'm sure you're currently enraptured by the sight - and smell - of all the blossom.

I've inherited about 80 apple trees in my new garden (way too many for the size of the garden, and a recipe for all sorts of fruit-tree disease), but they do look glorious. Here's a Bramley this week:

Now at first glance, just walking gently by, it looked as if there were very few insects visiting the blossom. But the thing is, there are so many individual flowers on one tree that a few dozen quietly-supping bees and hoverflies can easily escape your attention.

So I set myself up with my camera for 10 minutes to watch just one part of one apple tree to see what I could find.

Soon, as I got my eye in, I began to spot Honeybees (below).

But there were just as many of this lady (below). I always add the disclaimer that I am no bee expert - many are impossible to identify in the field. But this one, with a ginger back, a black abdomen but then a little bit of gingery fur right at the tip of her tail, I'm pretty sure is Andrena haemorrhoa, the Early Mining Bee.

But there were gorgeous hoverflies too. This one I suspect is a Syrphus but again they are very difficult and I need to peruse my books to confirm this. But note the giant eyes and the little knobby antennae which show this is a hoverfly, not a wasp which it is trying to mimic.

But even if you don't put a name to what you see, they are fascinating creatures to get up close and personal with.

And what's more, you get this sense of how much wonderful variety there is, right here in gardens, if you just stop and watch awhile.