YES!

Finally, I got some photos of a blue banded bee! This is not my B-B-Bee (see here for a little video I made of my bee) but I spotted him in my parents' garden and he was much more obliging than mine! Still very hard to get images of him, but he had more of a pattern to his constant flying around and settled on a piece of grass for a few moments. The big difference I noticed between my female (four blue bands) and this male (five blue bands) is he completely ignored me - no demented buzzing or flying at me.

Much better bigger!

I am so happy that I finally got one!

And here are four more images on flickr (if, like Paladian and I, you can't get enough blue banded bee!)

Other than that, we went blackberrying again and they are lovely and juicy, despite the complete lack of rain for the last couple of months.