Of bees and flies

The drone flies have been active in our back garden so I thought that would make a good blip today if one landed in a convenient place for long enough to photograph it. Drone flies are good honey bee mimics, their costumes protecting them from predation. And this is the resulting photograph.

Except it isn’t a drone fly, it looks very much like a solitary bee. Bee identification requires a lot of expertise, and is a very serious business, and having flicked through my bee field guide I remain puzzled. It may be a species of mining bee ?

There must be mining bees around, because the extra is a bee fly. So not a bee but a fly, and with a proboscis that is more than half the length of its body. They use that to reach the nectar of their favourite flowers - including primroses, grape hyacinths and pulmonaria, all of which are nearby. And the life cycle involves parasitising the nest of a mining bee.

I have tagged the blip for tiny Tuesday, although the only thing that is circular here is my thought process.,