THE CREATURE FEATURE Beauty and the thief

We all know how valuable bees are on the plot - without their pollinating power, our harvests would be pretty pathetic. This month, Jack Edmonds takes a look at some common April plot visitors, the mining bees, and the parasitic nomad bees out to spoil their fun...

Beyond the industrious honeybees and charming bumblebees we are so familiar with, there are a vast array of solitary bees to be found in the UK - around 220 of our 250 native bee species are solitary bees! April is a fantastic time to see them, and some of the most conspicuous are our mining bees. You may find a little 'volcano mound' of earth in the lawn, or under flowering trees like hawthorn and apple-evidence of the tawny mining bee (Andrena fulva) creating her nest. She is very distinctive - her abdomen and thorax are covered with a dense ginger fuzz, making her look almost teddy-bear like.

Her mate is far smaller and less distinctive, although you may still be able to identify him by the hairs on his face, which resemble a thick, bushy blond moustache. You might also see the gorgeous ashy mining bee (Andrena cineraria), another fuzzy customer with grey bands on her thorax, and an abdomen which gleams an oily, metallic blue in the spring sunshine. She is especially attentive to the weather, blocking the entrance to her burrow on rainy days. Not all mining bees make conspicuous nests; the chocolate mining bee (Andrena scotica) burrows into firm soils, often around pathways. In our early spring wildflower patch, the only clue to their presence was the bees themselves, drifting to and from an otherwise unremarkable piece of grass.