Tawny Mining Bee Advice

[desade]

Hi,

We had a number of tawny mining bees making nests in our lawn earlier in the year (around 10 mounds in total). We left the area along whilst the nests were built, but would like to know when the young will leave the nest ?

The area is suffering from a moss problem and I don't want to treat it if it will affect the nests.

Many thanks in advance

Dominic

[JRsbugs]

I'm not sure when they emerge but they hibernate over winter, read this article...

Mining Bees

Any poisons are not good for any wildlife, birds eat worms and caterpillars which live in moss. I have some moss, when I first moved to this house there was a good 3 inches of it and I couldn't cut the grass as it choked the rotary mower.

I borrowed a roller mower lowering the blades a little at a time until the ground was nearly nothing but soil. Grass recovers well, if you have A. fulva you probably have sandy soil like I have, it's poor and will grow meadow grasses and wildflowers wonderfully! I stopped trying to feed the grass and let the moss grow, it doesn't like hot spells anyway but I converted much of my meadow grass area to flower and shrub beds which are good for attracting all sorts of insects including bees.

I had a little white clover starting to appear, it's now nearly taken over all the grass area and it gets cut in spring, then maybe later in the year. I have a wonderful lot of clover starting to really thrive, bees like it too, and it provides nutrients to the soil as it's a legume and they make nitrogenous nodules on the roots. A perfect and natural solution which will benefit not only wildlife, you will have great fun finding all the new wildflowers which appear! I had some Ragwort appear in a couple of beds last year which I left, and got a Red-tipped Clearwing Moth on it, this year I have a few plants in my meadow 'lawn' which I find exciting as I know I will get insects which prefer this type of plant.

Janet

[fairydancer]

Hi

I think I have tawny mining bees in my lawn, i was cutting my lawn the other day with a trimmer when i went over and knocked the top off a moss pile and as i did some bees came out, i ran didn't know what they are and still not sure, could someone help me please, do these bees sting and how long to they stay? is it safe to mow my front lawn as at the moment it looks like a forest out there. Are they safe bees, I don't know anything about bees i thought you only got bumble and honey bees.

Please could someone help

Thank you
Rachel

[JRsbugs]

Hi Rachel, if bees came out then it's more likely to be Bombus pascuorum as they nest under moss and Andrena fulva has finished by now. It's a small bumblebee, if you google you should find what they look like. The thorax has gingery hairs.

They are not at all dangerous, if you want to clean up the rest of your lawn then perhaps you could go around the nest. It would be a shame to disturb them as they are around until well into the autumn and are good pollinators.

Janet

[fairydancer]

Hi Janet

Thank you very much, just looked at the pictures of the bombus pascuorum and they look like just what i have.

I now know how to proceed I will get someone else to sort the garden out, I will look out for nest in the rest of the lawn, now i know they are not dangerous.

I do have a fear of bees and wasp so i need to know they will not sting me..

Thank you for your help

Rachel