Tawny Mining Bee
Andrena fulva
Print fact sheet (PDF)
The little volcano of fine soil on a spring lawn is a female's front door.
A solitary bee whose females are unmistakable — densely furred in bright foxy-orange above with a black face and legs. Males are smaller, slimmer and duller brown. Tawny mining bees are common in gardens, lawns, parks and short grassland around Dumfries in spring, and are usually noticed by their nest mounds rather than the bees themselves.
Behaviour
Each female digs her own burrow in bare or short-turfed ground, leaving a neat volcano-shaped cone of excavated soil around the entrance. She provisions a few cells with pollen and nectar and seals them; there are no workers and no shared nest, though many females often nest close together in loose aggregations. They are harmless, do no damage to lawns, and are gone by June.
When to see it
Quick facts
- Family
- Mining bees (Andrenidae)
- Size
- Females 10–12 mm
- Status
- Native; common and harmless
Photo by Twotonetoo, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons