Despite their kleptoparasitic behaviour (laying their eggs in the burrows of other bees rather than doing the rearing themselves), I rather like Nomad bees so was delighted to find this dandelion, as the only local pollen source, had attracted a small congregation. As usual at the beginning of bee season, I optimistically thought I’d try to identify these and was almost immediately reminded of how tricky that can be, despite some really excellent visual resources being available online (BWARS, the Bees, Wasps & Ants Recording Society, has very good species galleries, and Steven Falk has excellent collections of species photographs on his flickr site). Having pored through a ton of images, I have tentatively identified my Nomads as Painted nomad bees (Nomada fucata) and recorded them as such. When/if my record is ever verified (or rejected), I’ll add a postscript here.

p.s. I’m adding a larger version of one of the above photos, as this might help with positive identification.