Red tailed cuckoo bumblebee

This is a first for our garden, a species that seems to be moving north in its distribution. Bombus rupestris is a cuckoo bumblebee. The female sneaks into the nest of a red tailed bumblebee, (lapidarius), subdues the worker bees and lays her own eggs in the nest.
It’s a very striking bee, large and distinctive with its orange red tail and dramatic black body. I’m very pleased to find it in what I am now calling my ‘bee border’!