Keys and general biology are found in Sladen (1912), Free & Butler (1959), Alford (1975) and Prŷs-Jones & Corbet (1991). A rather small yellow and black-banded bumblebee with an orange tail. It is a frequent visitor to the flowers of soft fruit, making it an important pollinator of these.

The extraordinarily long antennae of male Eucera species (when laid back these reaching the apex of the gaster) readily distinguish these bees from males of any other British bee genus. The male clypeus and labrum are bright yellow. In the female, the antennae are considerable shorter, when laid back their distal segments only reaching the scutellum; head entirely black.

Keys and general biology are found in Sladen (1912), Free & Butler (1959), Alford (1975) and Prŷs-Jones & Corbet (1991). Until recently this species was known as Psithyrus sylvestris, but Psithyrus has now been reduced to a sub-genus within Bombus. The bee bears little clear resemblance to any of its probable host species in the Bombus pratorum group.

Andrena fuscipes is a medium-sized Andrena, one of a group of five species (A. denticulata, A. fuscipes, A. nigriceps, A. simillima, A. tridentata) where the females have distinctive, triangular hind tibiae which do not incurve distally and with a strongly banded appearance to the copiously-haired abdomen. Within the group the species are all rather similar, especially the males. The silver-grey males may be found in numbers dashing over the tops of flowering heather plants.

This is a medium-sized Andrena, one of a group of five species (A. denticulata, A. fuscipes (Kirby), A. nigriceps (Kirby), A. simillima Smith and A. tridentata (Kirby)) where the females have distinctive, triangular… Read more

Keys and general biology are found in Sladen (1912), Free & Butler (1959), Alford (1975), Prŷs-Jones & Corbet (1991), Edwards, M. & Jenner (2005), Benton (2006), Macdonald & Nisbet (2006). Whilst males and queens of this species are readily separated (at least in the British form) from those of B. lucorum agg., workers are rather more difficult. Characters on the sting sheath (queens and workers) are discernible with care and fresh workers often have a narrow band of brownish hairs at the base of the white ‘tail’. However, as… Read more