female Andrena fulva ?

[Toby]

presume so given a male was ID'd recently from same place and female is hairier. On Bamboo, SW London.

[haematocephalus]

Well, I'll give my opinion just to fill in the time before we get a definitive answer from Eucera : this doesn't look quite right for female Andrena fulva, it's not red enough or hairy enough. Could possibly be Andrena bicolor? Or could be something else ...

Martin


Martin Harvey

[outdoorguy]

i found a tawny mining bee the other day and it was much more orange than this one..



this was the one i found.. james

[outdoorguy]

i think urs looks like 'andrene florea' not a common bee only really in the south east.. does that fit with ur location? james

[Toby]

Originally Posted by outdoorguy

i think urs looks like 'andrene florea' not a common bee only really in the south east.. does that fit with ur location? james

Yes this was taken in Greater London. Of the suggestions Andrena bicolor is looking most likely to me now.
Better view:

[eucera]

I agree with those who say this is NOT Andrena fulva. There is a good pic in this thread now and the two species are clearly not the same.

I don't know where Andrena florea keeps coming from. Is it one of the few Andrenas illustrated in Chinery? Anyway. It certainly isn't A. florea - A. florea flies in the late Spring and visits the flowers of White Bryony ONLY. The abdomen is less hairy and there are reddish markings on it as well.

So... what is it? It isn't easy to decide what size this beastie is but I think it is just might be the very common A. nigroaenea. A. bicolor isn't an impossibility, but its a size smaller than A. nigroaenea.

All you will be able to do with this in terms of a label is say Andrena sp. (female) I'm afraid. Beyond that would be guesswork and that really wouldn't be good enough

[Toby]

Cool, i'll go with that and list the main possibilities.