November 2025

November is a strange month for British wildlife. Rarely cold enough for snow here in the south, and yet chilly and often damp. Most leaves have dropped from the deciduous trees by its end, and most insects have died or are overwintering as eggs, hibernating adults or pupae, or have migrated south. Earthworms, (mainly Lumbricus terrestris) are tunnelling in the soft wet soil and are dragging in dead leaves to make new food for them. They often partially emerge from their tunnels and ‘rain-bathe’ during wet nights. November is probably the highlight month of the year for humble earthworms. They are hermaphrodites (all both male and female) but do not mate with themselves, but form partnerships with neighbours. They live up to 7 years and continuously breed by mating once every 7 – 11 days. This in turn is welcomed by badgers, whose main food is earthworms. There are 29 species of earthworm in Great Britain. These animals are essential for maintaining the quality of the c. 50 cm soil depth required to grow our food and maintain our natural environment.

If, like me, you have one of the Wealden District Council issued black cone Rotol Compost Converters for dealing with kitchen waste, you will probably see within it a different, small reddish worm extatically reproducing and munching your waste every time you lift the lid. These are known as manure worms or red wriggler worms (Eisenia fetida). They do a great job of decomposing food waste. We never put any kitchen waste in our normal domestic dustbin. One binman commented to me recently that we always only have one small bag of waste in our black bin. However, our recycling green bin is another matter. So much single use plastic and cardboard. We are so fortunate to have a district council that helps us to be environmentally friendly.

Sticking with the reproduction of invertebrates and weather, let’s go back to the warm summer that we have just had. As temperatures fall, we will be seeing fewer honeybees now. However, as worms love wet November nights to mate, honeybees love a warm calm sunny day to go on their nuptial flight. The colony will produce a batch of virgin queens and male bees (drones) during late spring and summer. Between 1 and 4 pm on a warm (18 – 19 °C or more) afternoon, drones from many colonies will form assemblies which attract the virgin queens who will mate, on the wing, with as many drones as possible and store the multiple sperm where her sting is in her abdomen. This ensures genetic diversity. Males have no sting, but the process of mating explodes their abdomen, so it is the last thing they ever do. The now fertilized queen returns to her natal hive. This successful queen will stay in the hive, laying eggs, while any other sister queens in the hive are often eliminated by her or the workers or may leave the hive with a swarm led by the old queen to a new location.