Big Bee News

Big Bee News

Ken Hayes

Fantastic news at Brockholes as two species of bee, never before seen at the Lancashire Wildlife Trust site, have been seen.

Our eagle eyed visitors have spotted two different species of bee, never before seen at Brockholes.

We rely heavily on our wonderful visitors and conservationists to let us know what species have been seen, and be our eyes and ears on the group in terms of wildlife. This is one of those truly exciting moments which is worth celebrating.

Colletes Bee

Ken Hayes

Davies Colletes Bee

Colletidae are a cosmopolitan group of bees with short tongues which nest in underground burrows.  The Colletes Bees are sometimes known as ‘Plasterer Bees’ because they produce a cellophane like resin to line their underground nest burrows. 

The Davies Mining Bee (Colletes daviesanus) is a small plasterer bee which is active mid-summer and frequents composite flowers like Oxe-Eye Daisy and Achillea. 

The Davies Mining Bee is becoming more common in gardens and readily takes to artificial nest sites such as holes in bricks.

Black Horned Nomad Bee

John Wright

Black Horned Nomad Bee

Nomad bees are small to medium-sized, rather hairless bees that can look quite wasp-like, though some are reddish and a few are blackish or white-spotted.

The black-horned nomad bee is a medium-sized nomad with a single yellow spot on the scutellum (third segment on an insect) and dark antenna. The body varies from black with well-separated lateral yellow spots to extensively red with lateral yellow spots, even within the same population.