Resources

RESOURCES - useful stuff for aculeate workers
Aids to identification
Glossary There are a bewildering and immense number of terms used by authors of publications describing Hymenoptera. Obtaining definitions of many of the terms can be time consuming and difficult. Fortunately, BWARS member Robin Williams has produced an excellent glossary that most aculeate workers will find an essential aid to identifying aculeates. British Hymenoptera: glossary for use with identification keys (Vanellus Publications) is a 50 page illustrated glossary, plus appendices.	Available from Robin Williams, Kyntons Mead, Heath House, Wedmore, Somerset BS28 4UQ Price: £12 including post and packaging (UK). View contents page here
Microsculpture the patterns of punctures, striation and ribbing are important features for identifying many aculeates. Robin Williams' glossary illustrates and explains many of these features. There is also an extremely useful, photographic guide at A Glossary of Ant Surface Sculpturing by Rick Harris.
Key to British Potter and Mason Wasps - Vespidae: Eumeninae. Reproduced from the book The British Potter and Mason Wasps (Hymenoptera: Vespidae; Eumeninae by kind permission of the author Dr. Michael Archer).	Download the key here
Hedychridium (Chrysididae) Photographs of sculpture on the thorax of the four British species as described in the RES key to Cuckoo Wasps - Chrysididae by Morgan.	Page may load slowly. Hedychridium thorax sculpture: Photos
Chrysis ignita group - aids to identification Several species of Chrysididae wasps in the Chrysis ignita aggregation are very similar in appearance. They can be fiendishly difficult to identify. BWARS president Mike Archer has produced three articles which describe the critical features to look for when trying to determine Chrysis species. The Chrysis files: Chrysis 1 Chrysis 2 Chrysis 3	Pdf Reader The Chrysis files are in pdf format. You will need a pdf reader to open them. A free pdf reader can be downloaded from Adobe Reader at
Coelioxys A photo guide to aid the identification of the British Coelioxys species. Produced by Rhian Rowson and Mark Pavett.	A Visual Guide for the Identification of British Coelioxys Bees
Test keys for British Bee genera Keys produced by Alan Stubbs. Please read the introductory text before using these keys.	Test Keys for Bees
The Hymenoptera Aculeata of the British Islands - a descriptive account of the families, genera, and species indigenous to Great Britain and Ireland, with notes as to habits, localities, habitats - Edward Saunders. Published in 1896, this book is of considerable historical interest. The downloadable pdf of this very rare book still contains much of interest, as well as a splendid series of hand coloured plates depicting many species of ants, bees and wasps. Saunders' work contains the last published comprehensive account of the British Bees (Apidae). This was the classic work on British aculeates for many years. It contains many fine hand coloured plates, which may be helpful to those who are not yet familiar with the British aculeate fauna. In addition, the comprehensive species descriptions are extremely helpful for determining aculeate specimens. You will need to check names against the checklist in the BWAR Members Handbook, or other recent checklist.	The Biodiversity Heritage Library has also made the book available as a series of zipped JP2 files (the folder is over 100MB in size though). These are high quality jpeg images (much better than the pdf images) for which a JP2 plug-in is normally required for viewing, in either Photoshop or Paintshop programmes. A JP2 plug-in is available here
Faune de France - Hyménoptères vespiformes - volumes I, II & III. pdfs of three excellent (although somewhat outdated) volumes are available from the Fédération Française des Sociétés de Sciences Naturelles web site. These works contain many illustrations, so should prove useful to most aculeate workers, even those who do not read French.
Wespen (Wasps) (in German) by Rolf Witt Second revised, enlarged edition (December 2009). 400 pages, about 450 photos, mostly coloured illustrations, format 11,6 x 18,6 cm. thread-stitching, film laminated board.	Read a review here
Label templates for aculeate specimens
All retained aculeate specimens should be adequately labelled with location, habitat and other details. A standard format determination label is also essential. A template containing examples of suitable labels can be downloaded HERE
Checklists of aculeate species
See the Recording Page for the British and Irish checklist World Bee Checklist of over 19,500 species: Read a press release here. You can access the checklist online at: www.itis.gov.	World Bee Checklist You can download an excel file containing a simplified version of the World Bee Checklist - this is a large 3.8MB file, so it may take some time to download.
Equipment Suppliers
Watkins & Doncaster - details on web site	Suppliers of most entomological equipment including entomological pins, store boxes, chemicals, nets, specimen tubes, dissecting tools and much more.
Nova Stranka	Czech entomological supplier with good value range of products. Nets, store boxes, malaise traps etc. Ships to anywhere in the EU.
D & D Henshaw contact via email at djhagro@aol.com Catalogue available. 34 Rounton Rd., Waltham Abbey, Essex EN9 3AR Tel. 01992 717663	Entomological pins, chemicals, specimen tubes, reagents etc.
Lydie Rigout - contact details on web site	High quality nets, frames, extending net handles collecting equipment, forceps, entomological pins and more
B&S Entomological Services	Malaise traps, hand nets, sweep nets and a variety of specialist traps
Bioform - German suppliers, who will ship to the UK. You will need to navigate through a largely German language, but well illustrated website. Delivery and ordering details are in English.	Wide selection of entomological equipment.
Alana Ecology	Field study supplies - some entomological equipment.
Anglian	Field and study equipment, microscopes etc.
Worldwide Butterflies	Entomological pins, store boxes, nets etc.
Pemberley Books	Comprehensive catalogue of new and used entomological books.
Ocelli Books	Publishers of Field Guide to Bumblebees
Natural History Book Service	Comprehensive natural history books supplier
Research
Pollen: Link to Atlas Hymenoptera pages, containing good quality photographs of pollen
Guidance for the preparation and analysis of pollen collected from bees A copy of Paul Westrich's paper for BWARS, Analysis of Pollen from Wild Bees can be downloaded from his web page here > download here
Sampling protocols for bees An invaluable link dealing with sampling protocols - from Terry Griswold's laboratory - USDA Bee Biology and Systematics Laboratory in Logan Utah: Bee bowl monitoring techniques
Surveying bees with bowl traps - two videos demonstrating how to carry out efficient bowl trapping surveys here: Video 1 Video 2
Beer trapping social wasps. Download a copy of a paper by LIBOR DVOØÁK: Social wasps (Hymenoptera: Vespidae) trapped with beer in European forest ecosystems.
Resources for North American bee studies For anyone visiting North America there is a list of very useful resources here
Reference Collections
The links below are to museums with good reference collections of aculeates. These are also museums where entomologists are welcome to use the collections and can often find assistance from enthusiastic staff or volunteers. Always contact the museum to make an appointment before visiting.
Natural History Museum - London
Oxford University Museum
Cambridge University Museum
National Museum of Wales
World Museum, Liverpool
Finding Grid References and Vice County information
Need to find a grid reference? Try the Ordnance Survey "Get a Map" tool or the Bedfordshire Natural History Society's excellent grab a grid reference tool which includes aerial photography via Googlemaps Need to check which Vice County your record is in? Us the BSBI's tool here For Channel Islands records, advice on recording locations is given here