There are currently no published keys to Coelioxys. George Else has a key in preparation. A photographic guide to the genus is available for download from the BWARS website. This species can be confused with C. elongata Lepeletier. It has a black gaster with pale bands and, in the female, elongated sixth tergite and fifth sternite.

A photographic test key by Rowson and Pavett is available via the BWARS website. Else and Edwards cover Coelioxys in their new book Handbook of the Bees of the British Isles, which is due for publication soon.

A photographic test key by Rowson & Pavett (2008) is available via the BWARS website. Else and Edwards cover Coelioxys in their new book Handbook of the Bees of the British Isles, which is due for publication soon.

BWARS has not yet produced an account for this species.

In recent years it has become apparent that the bee known as B. lucorum (Linnaeus, 1761) is in fact a species complex, containing two other species - B. magnus and B. cryptarum. Separation of the three species is very difficult, so that definitive records for any of the three species are rare. 

A photographic test key by Rowson & Pavett (2008) is available via the BWARS website. Else and Edwards cover Coelioxys in their new book Handbook of the Bees of the British Isles, which is due for publication soon.

There are currently no published keys to Coelioxys. George Else has a key in preparation. A photographic guide to the genus is available for download from the BWARS website. A distinctive group of largely black bees, with the females of most species having a pointed tip to the gaster. This species flies low over the ground looking for its host’s nests, often in a purposeful manner.

BWARS has not yet produced an account for this species, which currently cannot be reliably separated from other species in the Bombus lucorum aggregate.

BWARS has not yet produced an account for this species. This is a ubiquitous species, kept by beekeepers throughout much of Great Britain and Ireland.

A very attractive black and ginger, medium-sized, Andrena which used to be considered common in the mid 1900s, but which has declined greatly in range and occurrence since then. As it has always been associated with early-flowering trees such as blackthorn and hawthorn, it is difficult to understand why this decline has occurred.

This is a large, very distinctive bee with the thorax densely clad in snow-white hairs and the metasoma almost glabrous, with sparse black hairs and the integument entirely black and polished.

Records can be submitted online HERE

Identification notes are given below