Identification keys and general biology are given in Morgan (1984), Gauld & Bolton (1988), Kunz (1989) and Falk (1991).

This species is outwardly similar to others in the Formica rufa-group and is commonly known as the Scottish wood ant.

A rather local lowland species of bumble bee which has shown a significant decline in range in recent years. Identification keys and general biology are found in Sladen (1912), Free & Butler (1959), Alford (1975) and Prŷs-Jones & Corbet (1991). A very rare melanic form, f. nigrescens, was found a few times in East Sussex in the 1920s. Darker specimens were found again in 2011 on Dungeness (N Gammans pers. comm) and at Deal (RL Evans & ED Moss, pers. comm)

Colonies of this bumblebee produce few (less than 100) workers (Loken, 1973; von Hagen, 1994) and so female production is consequently also low.

Certain Nomada species visit the same restricted flower species as those of their host bees. One such species is N. armata, which largely confines its flower visits to two species of scabious (see below).

In common with Andrena hattorfiana, the females of A. marginata occur in different colour forms. There are three such morphs in A. marginata: tergites mainly black or blackish-brown (resembling coloration of males); tergites 2-5 of gaster entirely (or almost entirely) pale orange (female of this form figured by Westrich (1989)); and an intermediate form in which the gastral tergites have orange and black bands. The very dark form is apparently dominant in south-west England and in… Read more

This is often the first solitary species of bee to be found in the spring, sometimes flying in mid February. As with many of the early spring bees, A. clarkella forages almost exclusively from sallow blossom.

This species is one of the very few bees that, in Britain, visits only a single flower species for pollen, though it will fly to unrelated species for nectar.