All yellow-and-black flying insects are bees or wasps, right? Nope! I've lost count of the amount of times someone's pointed out a bee and it's been a hoverfly (or the amount of photos I labelled as 'bee' before I knew what hoverflies were). So let's get this straight at the start - not all yellow-and-black insects are bees or wasps and not all bees and wasps are yellow-and-black (nor hoverflies, come to that).
Bumping into Batman
Batman hoverfly by Wendy Carter
Dive into the yellow-and-black world of Batman and hoverflies...
Not all bees or hoverflies are yellow and black (photos by Wendy Carter)
Pretending that you're scarier and more dangerous than you really are can be a great strategy for survival. Female wasps and bees do have stings so why not copy them so that predators leave you alone? For many of our 280+ species of hoverflies in the UK, this is exactly what they do.
I'm a bee gal at heart but I can't help loving hoverflies too; I come across lots of them on my search for bees so I've spent time watching them too. Rather than have two pairs of wings, like bees and wasps, they've only got the one pair but they don't let this hinder them in any way. They've actually got a false vein in their wings and this enables them to hover with a simple up-and-down wingbeat. In fact, they can beat their wings several hundred times a second in a bid to stay stationary in the air. Have you ever been in a woodland in summer and heard a loud buzzing? This can be dozens of hoverflies perching or hovering in sunny spots, the vibration of their wings forming part of the sound of summer.
They've got amazing lifecycles too. The larvae of marmalade hoverflies (Episyrphus balteatus) spend hours munching on aphids, those of footballer or humbug flies (Helophilus pendulus) develop in damp, rotting vegetation, larvae of Narcissus bulb hoverflies (Merodon equestris) develop within the bulbs of plants whilst the armoured larvae of ant-nest hoverflies (Microdon sp) are protected from the bites of ants that 'own' the nests in which they develop. To top it all, just like those bees and wasps, they're also great pollinators so we should be doing all we can to help them.
Batman hoverfly by Wendy Carter
If you get 'buzzed' by a hoverfly, try to take a closer look; it might be Batman. These hoverflies are particularly inquisitive and will often check us out before landing or heading off to something more interesting. Gently lean in and take a closer look - you'll recognise this superhero of the hoverfly world by noticing the Batman-symbol mark on the thorax, between where the wings meet the body. While you're looking, why not impress your friends by proclaiming whether the individual is male or female - if the eyes meet in the middle it's a male but if there's a gap, you're looking at a female. If you get good at this, see if you can spot the difference between the spring and summer generations - spring ones are a little duller but you'll need sunglasses for the summer emergers!
For all that beauty and brightness, Batman hoverflies spend their formative months living in the dark depths of rot holes in trees and other places where vegetation rots down in dampness. In fact, their larvae are known as rat-tailed maggots because they have a periscope-like breathing tube emerging from their bottoms that reaches through the mire to fresh air. You can create perfect conditions for Batman to breed in your garden with a hoverfly lagoon - just a container, some water and fallen leaves and twigs. No-one can deny the rather wet winter we've just had but dry summers can cause real problems for hoverflies with rat-tailed maggot larvae so a garden lagoon could be a lifeline for some species.
It's not just lagoons that help Batman. Lots of nectar and pollen rich flowers in gardens and greenspaces also really help. Don't forget that other species of hoverfly (and other insects) will help keen gardeners here - nature has a balance all of its own that means that chemicals just aren't necessary. Of course, a mixture of plants also helps everything else - from bees and wasps to beetles and bugs.
Batman hoverflies are one of the target species for our Wildlife Sightings survey. We're trying to gather long-term data to see how these superhero hoverflies are doing across the county. If you spot one, try to grab a photo and then send it us via our short Wildlife Sightings form to get your sighting registered.
