Yesterday I went for my daily walk at Raw Nook NR and found not one new species but TWO for our recording area.
It was whilst I was looking for spring hoverfly species that I noticed what I thought was a Digger Wasp. I went to investigate and found a number of these insects flying about and going into a colony of small holes.
Then I noticed a grey bee species going into and coming out of the same holes.
Research has revealed that the Nomada lathburiana (Lathbury’s Nomada bee) visits the nesting sites of its host Andrena cineraria. It lays an egg which hatches first. It then kills the larva of the Grey Bee and feeds off the provisions.
The UK status of the Grey Mining Bee – Andrena cineraria is described as common by the NBN Atlas.
However the Nomada lathburiana (Lathbury’s Nomada bee) is not common and the NBN Atlas only hold 590 records ( with few for Yorkshire ). I have submitted both records to I Records with an additional request for more status information.
