The Place is Buzzing

Female Hairy-footed Flower Bee (Anthophora plumipes)

For the past week or so, the pollinators have really been buzzing around the garden. We haven't managed to sort most of them out yet (we need our friends Adam or Katie, both budding bee experts, to make a visit — and soon) but one we have identified is the Hairy-footed Flower Bee (Anthophora plumipes). The still photo shows a female visiting some naturalised Grape Hyacinth, while the video shows a male visiting some of the Red Dead-Nettle currently blooming all over the yard. According to our copy of Bees of Norfolk (yes, we're nerds), there are no records of this bee for the 10km square that we live within. We can certainly provide evidence that they're here; we've had dozens in the garden for several weeks now!

Females are black, with those distinctive orange pollen-collecting hairs on their back legs. Ours also show some orange on the face too, which isn't illustrated in the books we have. Males are gingery overall, with a large patch of yellow on their faces. They also show many long hairs on their legs (tough to see in the video). Both sexes also have super-long tongues, which is another key ID feature. We found a dead female on our doorstep a few days ago, and her tongue was nearly as long as her legs!

 Again according to the books, this is a common and widespread species in our part of the world, found in a variety of habitats — including gardens — from March to June. The list of flowers they're known to visit include many of the early spring "weeds" in our garden, and the flowers that attracted these two are included in the list. Apparently, these bees nest in big groups (i.e. sometimes in the thousands) in the walls of buildings and on cliffs. Let's hope they don't pick one of our walls for this year's romancing!