Tawny mining bee

How to recognise it

The female is unmistakable: densely covered in brilliant foxy-orange hair on the thorax and abdomen, with a black head and black legs. Males are smaller, slimmer, duller brown-orange, and have a distinct tuft of white hair on the face.

• Vivid orange-red furry female — one of the most brightly coloured bees in northern Europe.
• Small volcano-shaped mounds of fine soil on lawns and bare ground in April, each with a central hole.
• Flies March to May and is gone by June.
• Carries pollen on the hind legs, unlike the mason bees it is often confused with.

Body length 8–14 mm (typically 11 mm).

Biology

Social organisation

Solitary

Each female builds and provisions her own nest with no workers and no caste. Most of the world's bee species.

Nesting

Burrows in the ground

Digs a vertical burrow perhaps 20-30 cm deep in short turf, lawns, flower beds and bare soil, with side cells branching off it. The excavated soil forms the small conical mound around the entrance. Females often nest in loose aggregations — dozens of separate burrows in one lawn — which is what makes people think they have a colony.

Carries pollen

Scopa — dense hairs on the hind leg

On the wing

March to May

Lifecycle

1. 1Emergence and matingAdults emerge in March and April, males slightly ahead of females, and mate near the nest sites.March to April.
2. 2NestingEach female digs and provisions her own burrow alone, stocking each cell with a pollen loaf and one egg. She works for four to six weeks and dies.Four to six weeks.
3. 3Development and overwinteringLarvae develop through the summer and overwinter underground as adults inside their cells, emerging the following spring.Roughly eleven months underground.

Where it lives and what it does

Habitat

Lawns, parks, gardens, hedge banks, woodland edge and any short turf or bare ground with spring blossom nearby.

Distribution

Across Europe from Britain and Scandinavia to the Balkans.

Behaviour

Fast, low and busy. Females make repeated short trips between the burrow and nearby blossom through April, and the aggregations are among the easiest wild bee behaviour to observe closely because the animals are so indifferent to being watched.

Pollination role

A useful early pollinator of fruit blossom, currants and gooseberries, and of spring garden flowers. It flies in cool weather when honey bees are still clustered, which is where its value concentrates.

High on spring blossom, and particularly valuable for flying in cool April weather.

What it forages on

A generalist favouring spring blossom — fruit trees, willow, blackthorn, dandelion and currants.

Honey

Produces no honey

None. One pollen loaf per cell, no colony, and no winter to store for.

Relationship with people

How people interact with it

Mostly encountered as a supposed lawn problem. The mounds are small, temporary and cause no damage to turf whatsoever — the bees are gone by June and the soil washes back into the sward with the first rain.

Management

Nothing needs to be done. Do not water, level or treat the mounds. If they must be reduced, mowing normally is harmless and the nests are far below blade height.

Conservation

Widespread and not threatened, though like all ground-nesting bees it is squeezed by soil sealing — paving, dense turf, artificial grass and landscape fabric all remove nesting habitat that looks like nothing at all to a human eye.