…. or you may tread on a solitary bee emerging from its nest hole! If you look down at the cracks between the paving stones in the Alpines courtyard beside the old Alpine House, you will see numerous small holes. Each of these is a nest hole for a solitary bee belonging to the genus Andrena. On sunnier days they will emerge, fly low over the paving stones or settle on them, and of course go off to pollinate flowers in the Garden. These ones are probably Andrena barbilabris. There are lots of species in the genus Andrena and at least a dozen of them have so far been recorded in RBGE.

Andrena aff. barbilabris emerging from nest hole in Alpine Courtyard, 21 May 2013