Tidy

This was one of two female Orange-tailed Mining Bees (Andrena haemorrhoa) that were working the variegated spurge this morning. There was also one Tawny Miner, now faded to a deep buff colour, but she was much less cooperative about having her photo taken.

I like female Orange-tailed Miners - they're quite a distinctive shape and there's something tidy and organised about them, which makes them easy to identify even towards the end of the season, when they're faded or even, on occasion, almost bald. The males, as is usual with male mining bees, are much less distinctive, though they are quite extravagantly hairy, and they also have a little patch of orange hair at the end of the abdomen. If they survive long enough to age, which doesn't often seem to happen, this little blob of orange may offer the only clue to their identity.