Small Frenetic Solitary Bee (?)

[tigger]

I watched about 10 of these bees in my local churchyard today, darting up and down a hedge and patrolling a patch of lesser celandine. They flew backwards and forwards until they literally fell into a flower to regain some energy.

I'm guessing they were all males, on the lookout for females.

Eventually, after a long wait I managed to photograph one of them - before it continued on it's hunt. It was very small, maybe only 10mm.

I've no idea what it is but know I've never seen one before. Very distinctive stripy abdomen, red tinted thorax.

Any pointers would be appreciated.

Cheers. Jane

[tristanba]

Andrena flavipes I think Jane

[tigger]

Thanks Tristan. I did consider A. flavipes but had talked myself out of it when I looked in "bees of surrey" and started its description "This large bee....". It didn't say how large, but I wouldn't have called the bee I saw today large - no more than 10mm. However, looking on the BWARS site there is a photo of a female on a lesser celandine, and it looks a similar size to mine (that's if the flower is roughly the same size as mine). I wish these books would give you some idea of actual size in millimeters.

If there are still large numbers of them there tomorrow I might get a specimen and send it to Stuart at BWARS.

Thanks again. Jane

[tigger]

Have just found a reference to say they are about 11mm long... so that sounds good to me!

Can nest in large aggregations on bare areas of ground exposed to the sun - cleptoparasite is Nomada fucata.

Cheers

Jane

[tristanba]

I see Bernhard (terrainincognita96) on Flickr has suggested A. dorsata here- I would be inclined to accept his ID as he is far more knowledgable and experienced than I!