Bee volcanoes

06 Wednesday Apr 2022

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British bees, mining bee nests, mining bees, solitary bee nests, solitary bees, tiny piles of dirt

I can’t take the credit for the title of today’s post: by sheer coincidence, after returning from a walk with photos of these tiny dirt mountains, I spotted a tweet about the mini volcanoes of the bee Andrena fulva, and it seemed a very appropriate description. Mine may not be the work of that same bee species but they do indicate where solitary bees have dug out nest burrows for their young. I’m not sure whether these bee volcanoes are from newly hatched bees emerging from their winter nests or these volcanoes have only recently been excavated for the adult bees to lay this year’s eggs.

Another percher

14 Monday Mar 2022

Posted by sconzani in insects

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Andrena flavipes, bee on finger, British bees, mining bees

How lucky am I? After blogging last week about my delight at having a hoverfly sit on my hand, I’ve had another tiny percher. This time it was a bee, possibly a Yellow-legged mining-bee (Andrena flavipes), but don’t quote me on that. It was reluctant to fly off, as it was a cool day, so I carried it along with me until I got to a willow with open catkins, which my little flying friend was happy to move on to.

220314 bee on finger

108/366 Tawny miners

17 Friday Apr 2020

Posted by sconzani in insects, nature, spring

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Andrena fulva, British bees, mining bees, Tawny mining bee

Another day, another mining bee. You’ll recall we had the grey-haired Ashy mining bee on Tuesday; well, today we have the Tawny mining bee (Andrena fulva). And what a cracking colour it is! I’d love to have hair like this.

200417 Tawny mining bee (1)

The Bumblebee Conservation Trust website says these bees ‘can be found nesting in large groups and can be common in urban environments and garden lawns’ but I think that depends on location as the bees I see locally are usually singles, in less urban environments and, sadly, not as common as I’d like them to be, as their rich vibrant colour is very cheering.

200417 Tawny mining bee (2)

Unfortunately, just like the Ashy mining bees, the Tawnies can also fall victim to bee-fly predation. You can read more about that and the bees themselves on the BCT website here.