Ashy Mining Bee

This is my favourite type of bee, I do like a big bumblebee but seeing this little panda always makes me smile. Official name Andrena cineraria, but I prefer panda-bee.

She may have only emerged from her Winter hibernation, as an adult, yesterday because the weather was warm. I found her in the polytunnel. Definitely a female, as the male doesn’t have the super-glossy black abdomen and is a smaller bee.

She was cleaning herself which makes me think she wasn’t long out of the ground, so she’ll be off feeding on nectar and pollen from various flowers - I left her on our broad beans to aid pollination - and then needs to mate.

The males will have already emerged and once mated will die, whereas this little female will mine a burrow for her nest and lay her eggs. It’s a solitary bee but you’ll often see multiple nests (or at least the little volcanic dirt piles at the entrance) in one location. The photo below is one I took in 2015 where the bee seems to have re-used a vole hole, or something similar.

For the following few weeks she’ll be gathering nectar and pollen for her larvae to feed on before they emerge next Spring as adults - round it goes!

This little visitor is a very welcome Spring pollinator.