Country diary: A sun-warmed day has the bees feeling hot | Claire Stares

Langstone, Hampshire: Solitary bees, albeit hundreds of them, are hovering low to the ground, hoping to mate before nightfall One of the 68 UK-recorded species of mining bee in the genus Andrena, the ashy mining bee (Andrena cineraria) is classified as solitary. Yet on the narrow, balding strip of turf in front of my neighbours’ garage, they appear anything but. The ground shimmers with movement, as several hundred bees hover low in the spring sunshine. While each female maintains her own bur...

By Claire Stares