The Ivy Mining Bee.

This pretty little bee has been gracing the Ivy outside the office for the last week or so. They have been only recently described  as a distinct species. Until then, they were confused with another species the very similar, the sea aster mining bee.

The females of the Ivy mining bee, Colletes hederae are on average 13 millimetres (0.51 in) long, while the males are about 10 mm (0.39 in) long, significantly larger than the more common colletes species. The thorax of the adults is covered by dense orange-brown hair, while each abdominal segment has an apical orangey hair-band.

The adults emerge late in the year (the males from late August and the females a little later in early September) and remain on the wing until early November. The principal pollen forage plant is as the name suggests Ivy.  but both sexes will also nectar at Ivy flowers too. When Ivy is scarce, other species are visited. The females supply the larval brood almost cells exclusively with nectar and pollen of ivy flowers. When ivy flowering is delayed, females may also collect pollen at various members of the Daisy family.

They are solitary bees and don't live in colonies or overwinter as adults. They nest in clay-sandy soils, like many other solitary bees, they can often be found nesting in dense aggregations, sometimes numbering many tens of thousands of nests. In parts of the west European range of the species,  Colletes hederae are frequently parasitized by the larvae of blister beetle which feed on the supply of nectar and pollen prepared by females bees in their nests.

Thank you to Eliza Saunders for the image from Northward Hill RSPB.