This small to medium-sized Andrena is strongly associated with loose, dry sandy soils in open, heathy situations. The females are quite colourful when fresh, but soon become dowdy. The males, which race over the surface of loose sand in the sun, wear out even more quickly and a bright silver-grey insect rapidly becomes a dull browny-black with few obvious hairs. It is closely related to the similar, but larger and spring-flying, Andrena barbilabris (Kirby). Although not restricted to visiting ericaceous flowers, the heathland flowering period suits this species very well… Read more

Until recently this name wrongly used for A. confinis in Britain. According to Wood (Wood, BWARS Newsletter Autumn 2022) A. congruens has a northern range limit in central Germany and the name A. confinis should be used for the British fauna from now on.

A large, mainly dark mining bee, though the gasters of some females are occasionally extensively marked with red. In general, males are more commonly encountered than females, especially in the spring.

Although usually referred to as scotica in Britain, Schwarz et al. (1996) and Gusenleitner & Schwarz (2002) have treated scotica as a synonym of carantonica Peréz. However, Else & Edwards (in press), following P. Westrich’s (in litt.) interpretation of the type of carantonica, regard this is a separate species, with carantonica a junior synonym of trimmerana. It is one of the larger Andrena species, with a generally dark brown abdomen and a contrasting pattern of dark upper and pale lower hairs on the scopa of the hind leg. This… Read more

The females of this medium-sized Andrena can be found very commonly in late spring, often visiting the flowers of early umbellifers. Typical specimens are fairly easily recognised in the field: the male has a yellow clypeus with two small black dots at the sides, the female has a shining black abdomen with thin white hair lines at the apices of the segments and a tuft of brown-gold hairs at the tip. The scopa on the hind leg is a bright golden colour. Unfortunately, this happy state of affairs is often upset by the high frequency of stylopised specimens, where all manner of… Read more

A very smart-looking bee when freshly emerged, with bright foxy hairs on the thorax and a shining black abdomen with thin lines of white hairs on the apices of the segments. The males rapidly become very faded. A good character to separate the females is the form of the hind tibia which is widest at the apex, unlike the rest of the bees with this general appearance. When I first became interested in the aculeates in the 1970s this was a fairly scarce bee, but since then it has become one of the commonest andrenid bees, at least in the southern half of England.

The females of this medium-sized Andrena are very like those of Andrena bicolor Fabricius, but can be found in May, between the main flight periods of that species. Careful examination of the clypeus of female Andrean angustior will show a faintly impressed vertical line, not present in bicolor. Males of Andrena angustior seem to be generally scarce, the reason is not known.

This bee is one of eleven British species in the subgenus Micrandrena. These are very small species (body length 5–7 mm) that have an entirely black body integument relieved only by feeble transverse lateral bands of silvery hairs on tergites 2–4. Several species present difficult challenges to identification, as this often requires an appreciation of very subtle differences in surface microsculpture on the metasomal tergites and puncture density on the mesonotum. More pictures and notes … Read more

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