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Haha! Thanks. Manchester is pretty wild already :smilielol5:

The cleptoparasites are my favourite kind of bees! Sneaky bees.

Wasp sizes are extremely variable, I have some really tiny Vespula vulgaris workers. Sounds like social wasps to me. Esp excavating and being seen carrying the insulation away. A photo would help though.

New blog up. https://www.lancswt.org.uk/blog/karen-mccartney/midsummer-bees-and-wasps

Keep at it. Having a try yourself is the best way to learn. Some pointers - Andrena have a pair of grooves at the side of the eye (facial fovae) which are more obvious in females and although dark in this image you can just see a slight change in the dark in that area where the dark, velvety...

Andrena dorsata - one of the mining bees.

Osmia bicornis - red mason bees are solitary bees but in suitable places they will happily nest together but that's as far as the interaction goes. Each will construct and tend her own nest alone. They use existing holes and do not excavate so will not damage your structure. For more information...

Serian Sumner is one of my wasp heros.

Remember when the bees bearded after a hot day and someone from the forum who was local had to come out and stand with me to put an entrance block in?

Lovely. Have yet to see one.

Any time :) The cuckoos are some of my favourite bees. We have a number of solitary cuckoo species too. Fascinating life cycles. Love a sneaky bee ;)

Bombus vestalis female. You can see the yellow flashes above the white tail. Buff tails can often have a faint buff line above a white tail sometimes in workers but never this amount. This species is a cuckoo of Bombus terrestris - buff tails. The mites don't feed from the bee directly, the...

Thank you. I'll be doing one each month until the season is over so more to come!

I never get them nesting here unfortunately but I love to watch them and have loved the sound of them buzz pollinating the dog roses above my head while I have my morning coffee in the garden. They are lovely.

Thank you :)

New blog up. Hope you enjoy - https://www.lancswt.org.uk/blog/karen-mccartney/early-summer-bees-and-wasps

Most likely Bombus hypnorum - tree bumblebees. You are seeing male patrolling behaviour, eager males lurking waiting for a new queen to emerge to mate with. This happens towards the end of the nest cycle as the nest starts to produce sexuals (queens and males). The nest will start to dwindle now...

Yep Bombus pascuorum. This is a species that typically nests above ground in clumps of grasses or under anything that may be left on the ground long enough and are the most likely to be disturbed as people start to tidy gardens after the summer. One of our later flying bumblebees.

As much as I love hornets I'd have to say she needs deterring or at least coaxing into finding another way in. A bit more docile than other wasps but still will be defensive around the nest.

Sounds like tree bumbles. I get loads of queries about them around this time as people start to notice nests. Often it's due to male patrolling activity outside the entrance - lots of bodies buzzing around hoping to catch any emerging queens to mate with. Once you see this activity the nest...