This stunning creature might look like a bee but it’s actually a sawfly, a harmless creature that does not sting and is so-named because the female’s genitalia are capable of ‘sawing’, in vegetation, a hole in which she then lays her eggs.

This particular sawfly may be Abia sericea, a sawfly whose larvae feed on scabious plants, particularly Devil’s-bit scabious, which is very abundant where I spotted this glistening creature.