Digging bees on a sandy road

Mining bees

On one of my walks, I noticed some bees digging in the ground on the edge of a sandy road. I never saw this up close before, and I also had a hard time finding out their species, but I did: they are gray-backed mining-bees (Andrena vaga). The genus Andrena contains over 1300 species, 600 in Europe alone!

These are solitary bees, so all females are fertile and there is no division of labour or hierarchy; no queens, no workers, an anarchist variety of bees, so to speak.

Their nests are underground, and they are very strong diggers; I saw one disappear completely in fresh sand in about 30 seconds. They don't live in colonies like honey bees, but they do tend to live close together in separate nests, like an underground apartment building.

These bees are about 15mm (0.6") long, so those aren't rocks you see in the photos, but grains of sand. The yellow you see on the legs is pollen; these bees themselves don't have much colour.

Here's one posing for me, finally standing still:

And one at work (you can just make out the three extra little eyes it has on the top of its head):

Another portrait shot. You can easily tell which legs they use to store and carry around pollen (almost exclusively from willows):

And another one at work:

This is what they look like without the pollen. It is pushing away an annoying clump of sand with its hind legs:

Thanks for watching!

^{Repost from Golos. All photos taken with an Olympus Stylus 1s at 42mm.}