Urban Bees and PWC

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Urban Bees is in the fourth year of its partnership with auditor’s Price Waterhouse Coopers. Here’s a timeline showing the progress that’s been made to help wild bees at the company’s offices and by staff too:

2022: Better planting for bees

PWC’s London gardener, who we work with at Weil law firm, asked us how to make the terraces and roofs at PCW’s two London offices better for bees and other pollinators. As a result, he planted more fruit trees and early and late flowering perennials, shrubs and herbs at the Embankment office terraces.

2023: Bee safaris at Embankment office

We gave a series of talks to staff about different bees and their importance and how we can help them. We ran our first bee safari on August 3 and saw honeybees (other companies have hives nearby, so they forage on the PWC terraces), a Buff-tailed bumblebee (Bombus terrestris) and a Common carder bee (Bombus pascuroum). Lavender proved the biggest hit with the bees. The second bee safari took place during a September heatwave. The lavender had gone, so the bees were on a mixture of Catmint (Nepeta), a shrub called Bluebeard or Caryopteris x clandonensis and Anise hyssop (Agastache foeniculum). We didn’t see much variety of bees – just the same as last month.

Comments from staff:

“Loved the bee safari. I never knew there was more than one type of bee and that only one makes honey.”

“Can’t wait to start planting some of these flowers in my garden and see which bees arrive.”

“What a great way to spend my lunch hour. I’ve learned so many new things.”

“Looking forward to seeing different bees next spring.”

“My daughter is going to love this bee guide. Maybe they can do something similar at her school.”

2024: Bee hotels and boxes installed and workshops

  • Installed bee hotels for cavity-nesting bees and a bee observation box at EP so staff can see the life cycle of a Red mason bee nesting in the box – Red mason bees nested in the hotels and observation boxes on 8th and 3rd floor terraces.
  • Installed a bee sand planter for ground-nesting mining bees – no evidence it is being used.
  • Put up signs about the different bees staff may see visiting the terraces
  • Ran summer bee safaris and bee hotel workshops for London staff
  • Visited regional offices (Birmingham, Bristol and Manchester) to run bee hotel workshops where in total 90 staff assemble flat-pack wooden bee hotels to take home and learned about bees and how to help them
  • Advised contractors how to make terraces and rooftops in regional offices better for bees and biodiversity.

2025: More safaris and regional workshops

  • Presented an introduction to bees webinar for World Bee Day, May 20
  • Delivering bee hotel workshops in Birmingham (pictured above), Leeds, Manchester and Bristol
  • Following our report to contractors, planting has been improved on the Manchester terraces where we are running a joint bee hotel workshop and bee safari in July.
  • Running summer bee safaris on the terraces at the EP offices again to discover foraging bee species and to see the life cycle of the Red mason bees in the observation boxes.
  • Following Urban Bees recommendations, planting is being improved at PWC More London office, so hopefully we can install bee hotels and an observation box in spring 2026 and run bee safaris there in summer ’26.

Making a small sand mound for mining bees to nest in

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Step by step guide

  • 1. Find a sunny, warm area 1m2 and clear it of vegetation.
  • 2. Lay a base of gravel for good drainage
  • 3. Bees prefer loamy soil, but if you don’t have any try to replicate loamy soil by mixing one bag of builders’ sand with 2 bags of top soil to get a good consistency that binds together.
  • 4. Add it little by little on top of the gravel, layer by layer, patting it down as you go.
  • 5. Keep going until you have a 400mm high mound.
  • 6. Add some large stones/pebbles to the base as some bees may bask on them to warm up, or they may shelter underneath or behind on windy days, or make their holes in between the stones.
  • 7. Monitor to see if any holes are made and who may be nesting in your sand mound.

Thanks to Dr Konstantinos Tsiolis, whose PhD was on nesting sites for mining bees, for his advice and help with this project.

Summer bees 2025

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This month, we have to say goodbye to some of my favourite spring-flying solitary bees, like the Hairy-footed flower bees and the Red mason bees, as their short life-cycles come to end. But we can say hello to some summer beauties, like the Wool carder bee and the leafcutter bees. You’ll hopefully see three more bumblebee species too and a cuckoo bumblebee, (There will also be plenty of buff-tailed and white-tailed bumblebee workers foraging, and smaller, brown common carder bees, but we haven’t included them in the June guide as we wanted to introduce you to some new faces). There are four new solitary bees to try to identify this month: a lovely mason bee, a small, zippy flower bee with huge green eyes, and we’ll see for the first time this year, leafcutter bees. And see if you can spot the difference between a bumblebee and a hoverfly that mimics a bumblebee.

Tips for IDing June bumblebees:

  • Early bumblebee (Bombus pratorum) – if you see a small bumblebee (9 -13mm) with a faint red bottom and yellow stripes, it’s an early bumblebee. The male (pictured above) is particularly striking with his bright-yellow fluffy facial hairs and a stripe on his body too. This month, new queens may be emerging, along with workers and the males. Look out for them on cotoneasters, brambles, Raspberry and Crane’s-bill (hardy geraniums). They can also nectar rob from longer, tubular flowers. They have small colonies of up to 100 bees and generally nest underground in old rodent burrows like many bumblebee species, but they can also inhabit bird boxes (like Tree bumblebees (Bombus hypnourm) and nest in roof spaces and holes in trees, although I have yet to hear reports of this.
  • Garden bumblebee (Bombus hortorum) – sit by a patch of flowering foxgloves or honeysuckle and you will hopefully see this long-tongue bumblebee coming in and out of the flowers. The way to tell the Garden bumblebee from Buff-tailed and White-tailed bumblebees is by looking at the two golden bands at the front and back of the thorax which makes the bee look as if it’s wearing a black skull cap. It has a third band on the abdomen. It also has a longer ‘horsey’ face than other bumblebees, and will be going into the flower rather than sucking up the nectar from the side. Many other large bumblebees with white tails have shorter tongues but nectar rob by making a hole in the base of the flower.
  • Red-tailed bumblebee (Bombus lapidarius) –unmissable with jet black bodies and fiery red tails, but records show that they too are becoming less widespread. I have read that they favour yellow flowers, so I am planting lots of Birds-foot trefoil for them, but so far no luck in my London garden. I have seen them on a rooftop on a tiny yellow sedum’s flowers and collecting pollen from the pink-petaled seaside daisy (Erigeron glaucus). I’d also suggest looking up at Laburnum trees drooping under the weight of yellow, pea-like flowers. This year I saw many foraging on purple salvia flowers in a garden in north Norfolk. In the photo above the female is putting up a leg as a warning signal that she feels threatened and to keep away. But these are gentle bees.
  • Vestal cuckoo bee (Bombus vestalis) – also called the Southern cuckoo bee because it is in this part of England where you are most likely to see the huge females (24mm) seeking to invade the underground nest of Buff-tailed bumblebees (Bombus terrestris) and lay their eggs. At this time of year only smaller Buff-tailed bumblebee workers are foraging. So if you see a huge bee that looks like a big Buff-tailed bumblebee queen, it’s more likely to be its cuckoo. Other ID tips: she has a longer white tail with yellow hairs at the base, and there are NO pollen baskets on her hind legs. (She is a female and not a queen because she doesn’t have worker bees. Her eggs hatch into females and males that are fed by the Buff-tailed bumblebees worker bees. These workers become the cuckoo bee’s slaves after she takes over their mother’s nest.)  NOTE: There are 6 Cuckoo bumblebee species in the UK. This is the most common one because its host is the most common bumblebee.

How to ID June solitary bees:

  • Green-eyed flower bee (Anthophora bimaculata) – these gorgeous looking bees with their stunning big green eyes are around half the size (8mm) of the spring-flying Hairy-footed flower bees (Anthophora plumipes). Their diminutive size, along with their rapid darting movement between flowers, makes them much more difficult to spot and they are largely confined to southern England, especially coastal areas and heathland where they nest in large, noisy aggregations in sandy cliff tops and the edge of costal pathways. They feed on Vipers bugloss, Black horehound, brambles, Thyme and mints including Nepeta and other garden catmints. Listen out for the high-pitched buzz as they feed, often in groups. They fly until September, so one to watch out for if you’re holidaying on the South cost this summer.  
  • The Orange-vented mason bee (Osmia leaiana) – has a fluffy orange pollen brush under her abdomen which she uses to collect pollen from a variety of flowers including Green Alkanet, Crane’s-bill (hardy geraniums), brambles and knapweeds. You may see her nesting in a bee hotel, or a bee observation box. Here is a video of her packing her nest with pollen (we mistakenly called her a Blue mason bee because they fly at similar times of the year and both use masticated leaf to plug the tubes of their nest).
  • Patchwork leafcutters (Megachile cenuncularis) are one of the most common leafcutter bees found in gardens. They get their name, like many solitary bees, from how they construct their nests. They cut pieces of leaf from many plants including rose and lilac bushes, honeysuckles, willowherbs, Amelanchier trees, birches and Horse chestnut to make their nests, leaving the leaves looking as if they has been attacked by a hole punch. This leafcutter bee is a little smaller (9-10mm) than a honeybee and a brownish grey colour. But the easier way to tell her apart from a honeybee is from the orange pollen brush on the whole underside of her tummy, (similar to the Orange-vented mason bee), which she has a habit of lifting up in the air while feeding on flowers. Favourites include thistles, knapweeds, burdock, Common Fleabane, Bird’s-foot trefoil, St John’s-wort and brambles.  They nest in bee hotels if Red mason bees have left any tubes unoccupied. They plug the entrance with pieces of leaf later in the summer when they have laid all their eggs in a tube. If you’re very lucky, you may see a female flying with a piece of leaf as big as herself clasped between her legs. They can also nest in dead wood, cavities in walls and even occasionally in soil. TOP TIP: How to tell a Orange-vented mason bee from a leafcutter – with difficultly, but the mason bee is a fraction smaller (8mm), but has a bigger head and narrower body and uses chewed up leaf to construct her nest, rather than discs of leaves.
  • The Wool Carder Bee (Anthidium manicatum) is an easy bee to spot and therefore one of my favourites. It’s a chunky 16mm bee with yellow spots that looks like stitching along the side of its abdomen . And if you plant Lamb’s Ear (Stachys byzantina), you are guaranteed to see females collecting the soft downy material from the underside of the leaves to line and plug their nests. Carder means to ‘tease out fibres’, and the female rolls the hairs into a ball as big as herself to carry home to her nest which is in a ready-made hole in dead wood, cavities in wall and man-made objects. I’ve yet to see one. You may also see the larger male bees aggressively defending their patch of purple flowers for mating by attacking intruders mid air. They are armed with spikes under their abdomen that can kill their foes. As well as Lamb’s ear, these bees can often be seen feeding or mating around Black horehound, Purple toadflax and vetches. NOTE: Despite having a similar English name to the Common carder bee (Bombus pascuorum), they are very different. The latter is a social bumblebee.
  • Bumblebee hoverfly (Merodon equestris) – some hoverflies are excellent bumblebee mimics with their fluffy coats and round bodies. TOP TIP: The way to tell them apart from real bumblebees is the eyes (flies have bigger eyes), the legs (flies have spindly legs and they don’t collect pollen on their back legs), and they tend to stay still on a flower or leaf for longer than a bee with their wings out, rather than tucked behind them.

How to help bees in June:

  1. Planting different flowers for different bees is particularly important this month when there can often be what’s called a June gap in the UK – a lull in nectar and pollen supplies as the horse chestnut trees finish flowering and trees, such as the limes, have yet to begin while spring flowers fade before summer ones burst into bloom. Try cotoneaster and thistles for short-tongued bees, and foxgloves, honeysuckle, comfrey and catmint for longer-tongued bees like the Green-eyed flower bee. Research by bee-friendly plant supplier, Rosybee found that in June the yellow flowers of  Dyer’s chamomile (Anthemis tinctoria) were the best for all types of solitary bees, followed by purple Geranium rozanne ( a favourite in my small garden because it flowers until October). Biennial Viper’s bugloss (Echium vulgare) was best for bumblebees, as it produces nectar all day long, followed by catmint (Nepta racemosa – another long flowerer) and a white lavender (Lavandula x intermedia ‘Edelweiss’). Don’t forget Lamb’s Ear (Stachys byzantina) for the Wool carder bees.
  2. If you only have a window box, try growing Scabious japonica, dwarf harebells (Campanula carpatica), dwarf lavenders, Mexican fleabane (Erigeron karvinskianus), seaside daisy (Erigeron glaucus), and creeping thyme (Thymus serpyllum) which flower from June onwards. Water regularly.
  3. Don’t pull up weeds like Alkanet, which feed many types of bees, and continue not to mow part of the lawn (after No Mow May comes Let it Bloom June ) to let  clovers and knapweeds grow.
  4. It’s not too late to install blue tit boxes – not for birds but for Tree bumblebees (Bombus hypnorum) and possibly Early bumblebees to nest in. They will vacate at the end of the summer, so you may get blue tits nesting next spring.
  5. Put up bee hotels. It may be too late for Red mason bees, but Orange-vented mason bees, Blue mason bees and leafcutter bees may check-in and lay their eggs this summer. Leafcutter bees prefer slightly bigger diameter tubes of 9-10mm. The others 6-8mm. We have created flat-pack bee hotels that can be easily assembled and come with instructions about where to put them and how to attract bees to nest in them by planting their favourite flowers.
  6. Create your own nests for cavity-nesting solitary bees, by drilling holes in blocks of wood – 10mm, 8mm, 6mm and 4mm diameters and up to 30 cm deep – and screw them to a sturdy support. Drill holes in existing structures such as fence posts, or dead trees. See which bees take up residence over the summer.
  7. Continue to leave bare earth for mining bees to burrow into, or if you have space make a 1m 2 sand mound for mining bees to nest in. See here for a step by step guide.
  8. Provide a source of water for thirsty honeybees. This can be a shallow bowl or saucer with stones or pebbles in that the bees can stand on while they are drinking. Bees can’t swim!
  9. Ditch the weed killers and pesticides – that includes all bugsprays for your roses!
  10. Buy a Field Guide to the Bees of Great Britain and Ireland if you are serious about IDing lots more bees.

Where have the spring-flying solitary bees gone? The Hairy-footed flower bees (Anthophora plumipes) are disappearing, along with Red mason bees (Osmia bicornis) and early mining bees.  This is because adult solitary bees only live for a few weeks (6-8 weeks). And the spring flying solitary bees that came out in April or before have now reproduced and provisioned their nests with pollen, so their life cycle has come to an end.  In their short life they mate and then the female makes, or finds and adapts a nest in which to lay her eggs. She forages for pollen to leave in the nest for the hungry larvae which will hatch from her eggs and gobble up all the pollen. But she will never see her offspring. When she has laid all her eggs and provisioned them with pollen, she will plug up the entrance to the nest, and exhausted from all her activities she will die on the wing. But in her short life she has done an extremely important job – pollinated many flowers, shrubs and trees whose fruits, seeds and nuts are food for birds and other species. Once the larvae have eaten all the pollen, they spin a cocoon, pupate and transform into adult bees through metamorphosis. They overwinter in the cocoon and will emerge next spring to start the life cycle again. The males of all solitary bee species emerge first to build up their strength for mating. In the case of the Red mason bees, they break though the mud at the end of the tubes in the bee hotels.

KCL – How to increase occupancy of bee nesting sites

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Bee hotel and observation box in Memorial Garden, Guy’s campus, KCL, April 2025 – not enough flowering ground cover or shrubs

Science gallery, Guy’s campus – there are some flowering plants, but there needs to be more spring-flowering ground cover, bulbs and perennials, and a crab apple in the large pot.

Guy’s campus – non occupied bee hotels

Denmark Hill campus – too much bare earth and evergreen shrubs, needs bee-friendly groundcover, perennials and bulbs and shrubs like Rosemary (May 2025)

Stamford Street courtyard – shrubs cut back too much so can’t flower. Need to be underplanted with groundcover flowering plants such as geranium. Too many evergreens. No flowers for bees or other pollinators.

Great Dover Street courtyard – too much bare ground, nothing flowering. (May 2025)

GDS – Scope to plant up all the tree pits with spring-flowering bee-friendly bulbs and flowers

GDS – scope to replace dead Portuguese laurel with bee-friendly, evergreen Sweet box flowering January – March

Honor Oak – Bee hotel and boxes not occupied. Not enough flowers and a bit too shady. Could move to a sunnier spot (below) where the box and hotels could face south east and flowers could be planted.

Bee hotels are also situated in a shady spot in Maughan Library (below). There are no options for moving them to a sunnier spot, or to improve the flowering plants.

Cavity-nesting solitary bees have 3 requirements for nesting

  • 1. Sufficient nectar and pollen-rich flowers when they are flying and looking to provision a nest with pollen
  • 2. Suitable nesting boxes such as wooden bee hotels filled with 15cm deep tubes made of bamboo or cardboard, or wooden bee observation boxes. These should ideally face south or east, be a metre off the ground, in a fixed spot and undisturbed
  • 3. Nesting material with which to construct their nests, such as damp earth (Red mason bees), leaves from Rose bushes (leafcutter bees), fibres of Lamb’s ear (Wool carder bee).

To date only requirement 2 had been met in most cases, but there is much planting that can be done to provide a variety of bee food and nesting material.

Weil bees in the City

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‘You don’t need a hive to help bees’

As World Bee Day approaches on 20 May, it’s good to look back at how Weil has supported bees over the past eight years. When Weil law firm approached Urban Bees eight years ago to find out how it could best help bees, we recommended that its south-facing terrace eight floors above Fetter Lane could provide an oasis for solitary bees, which are important, but often forgotten pollinators.

Improved forage: Urban Bees worked closely with the Weil gardener, Matt Bell, advising on flowers, shrubs and herbs to provide these wild bees with nutritious pollen and nectar from early spring to late summer.

Here is a guide to some of the best bee-friendly flowers you can plant in your own garden or window pots. The trick is to have flowers blooming sequentially from early spring to late autumn.

Nesting sites: Then we installed and maintain bee hotels, thanks to the support of Margaret Lloyd, the then Weil Facilities Services Director, and now Rémy Chaugny, to provide safe nesting sites for solitary Red mason bees. These docile wild bees check into the hollow tubes contained in the cylinders and lay their eggs in early spring. See video here

Education: Staff have taken part in Urban Bees’ bee safaris on the terrace where they have identified different bee species on the flowers, learned how they can help bees at home, and have made ‘bee hotels’ to put up in their own garden.

And every summer, 30 pupils from Friars Primary School in Southwark – where Weil staff volunteer – visit the office to go on a bee safari with Urban Bees’ Alison Benjamin (pictured below) and a bee spotter guide. Alison also shows them how to make bee hotels to take home. Thanks to Sue Cook, Pro Bono & Corporate Responsibility Assistant, and Sarah Chase, Director of Research Services, for their help organising the school visit.

In 2022, Urban Bees added a bee observation box with removable panels (pictured below) to allow pupils and staff to be able to see the life cycle of the Red mason bees from egg, to larvae eating pollen, spinning a cocoon to pupate and become an adult bee the following spring.

“Urban Bees’ entertaining and practical lunchtime sessions about how to help bees have proved extremely popular with our employees at all levels of the firm. It’s been a fantastic way to engage employees in sustainability issues. Employees appreciate why Weil has transformed its roof terrace to provide food and lodging for wild bees. And pupils from one of our partner primary schools have come into the office to make bee hotels, gone on a rooftop bee safari with Alison Benjamin at Urban Bees and witnessed the life cycle of the bees. It’s an experience they say they’ll never forget!” Robert Powell, former Head of Pro Bono & CSR

In 2023, pollinator surveys on the Weil terrace over the summer recorded seven different species of bee;

  • Early bumblebee (Bombus pratorum) on thyme
  • Common carder bee (Bombus pascuorum) on St John’s wort (Hypericom)
  • 2 x Yellow-face bees (Hylaeus) – a male (pictured below middle) and female Common yellow-face (Hylaeus communis) flying around the fennel
  • 2 x furrow bees (pictured below left) – (Lasioglossum smeathmanellum) on hebe
  • Male leafcutter bee (Megachile centuncularis) on hebe.
  • Buff-tailed bumblebees (Bombus terrestris) on Jasmin and fennel
  • Honeybees on Buddleia, Jasmin and thyme.

The terrace scored an impressive 17/20 for providing habitat for pollinators. Surveyors commented: “A very good diversity and abundance of plants for forage and lifecycle stages.” And there are three small bee hotels on site and a bee observation box which are mostly occupied.” Dr. Konstantinos Tsiolis, leader of the Pollinating London Together surveys, (pictured above) hopes the Weil terrace could be an example for other City companies to follow. “It just goes to show how a small terrace in the City 8 storeys up that is used for entertaining clients in the summer can also be a haven for many species of wild bees by planting a diverse range of bee-friendly plants that are attractive to people and bees throughout the year”, he says. More on the Pollinating London Together 2023 Habitats Survey here.

Brown-banded carder bee (Bombus humilis) above left) In summer 2024, this rare bumblebee was recorded foraging on late-flowering lavender. It was the first recording by PLT in the City last year and was an important find. In the 2024 PLT Pollinator and Habitats Survey, the Weil rooftop was in the top 5 of all rooftops surveyed.

In spring and summer 2025, PLT will conduct more surveys, Urban Bees will run more workshops for pupils, and continue to provide a haven for bees in the City without honeybee hives.

Bees to See in May

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This month, hopefully you will see at least one new bumblebee species, a new mason bee, four types of mining bee, the now familiar Hairy-footed flower bee, and two ‘cuckoo’ bees – the Mourning bee and the Vestal cuckoo bee. (All photos credit: Penny Metal)

You will continue to see some of the bumblebees you first spotted in March and April, but instead of queens you will now probably be seeing the smaller worker bees foraging on flowering trees and plants.  

How to ID May bumblebees:

  • Tree bumblebees (Bombus hypnorum) with their ginger thorax, black body and white tail could be the new occupants of your blue tit box if the chicks have fledged. I’ve not seen them in London for a few years now, so it appears you’re more likely to see them in cooler parts of the country. Be prepared for noisy buzzing outside their new home as gangs of males compete to mate with virgin queens. (As you can see from the photo, the male on top is much smaller than the queen.) Tree bumblebee colonies vacant a bird box at the end of the summer, so it will be empty for the blue tit family next spring. I still find it hard to tell Common carder bees (Bombus pascuorum) and Tree bumblebees apart when they are flying, despite the latter having a darker body and a white tail.

Top ID tip to tell a Common carder bee from a Tree bumblebee – both sport a bright ginger pile at this time of year (later in the year, the former fades and the latter goes a bit bald), so the best way to tell them apart now is to focus on getting a look at their bottom. The Tree bumblebee has a tiny white bottom and a darker body (abdomen). The Common carder bee is brown all over. Good luck!

Bumblebee cuckoo bee

  •  Vestal cuckoo bee (Bombus vestalis) – also known as Southern cuckoo bee because she used to be more common in the south of England – looks very similar to a Buff-tailed bumblebee (Bombus terrestris). That’s because she resembles the bee whose nest she takes over. Like the cuckoo bird (hence the name), she lays her eggs in the nest already made by her host. The cuckoo bee will actually kill the host queen and her eggs and dupe the host’s worker bees into raising the cuckoo bee’s young. Cuckoo bees are either male or fertile females. They do not have queens or worker bees..
  • There are six cuckoo bumblebees in the UK. Because Buff-tailed bumblebees are so common, so too is the Vestal cuckoo bee. Their presence means the host population is healthy.

Top tip for telling a Vestal cuckoo bee from a Buff-tailed bumblebee – The easiest way to tell these two large bumblebees apart is that the cuckoo has a longer white tail and above the tail is a pale yellow band. It’s a paler yellow than the dirty gold on the bee’s thorax and paler than the Buff-tailed bumblebee’s golden bands. The Vestal cuckoo female is a similar size to a Buff-tailed bumblebee queen but much bigger than Buff-tailed workers. Their wings may seem a bit darker and the other tell-tale is that they never carry pollen (as the host workers will feed its young). This is true for all cuckoo bumblebees.

How to help bumblebees in May:

  1. Leave a patch of the garden wild for nesting sites and don’t disturb a nesting site if you find one for example in a compost bin or under a garden shed (it will only last until the end of the summer). Leave some permanent long grass in which Common carder bees may nest.
  2. It’s not too late to put up a blue tit box for the tree bumblebee to nest in. Again, they will leave at the end of the summer and birds can use it next spring.
  3. Buy and plant alliums, catmint and cotoneaster from garden centres to provide food this month for short-tongued bumblebees. Foxgloves, honeysuckles and thistles for the long tongued bumblebees.
  4. It’s not too late to grow from seed annuals that provide late summer bee forage such as sunflowers, cosmos and Anise hyssop.
  5. Don’t mow the lawn (let clovers and dandelions flower). See the Plantlife No Mow May campaign.
  6. Ditch the weed killers and pesticides.
  7. Scatter wildflower seeds or seed balls in pots or on bare earth. The annuals will flower later in the summer and perennials next year.

How to ID May solitary bees:

  • Grey-patched mining bee (Andrena nitida) is one of the most common mining bees in southern Britain, extending up to Lancashire and Yorkshire. She has a brighter red, fluffy pile on her thorax than the short-fringed mining bee, and grey patches on her black abdomen. These medium-sized bees (10-12mm) can be found foraging on spring blossoming shrubs and trees and dandelions and in scattered nests in flat or sloping turf and lawns.

Top tip for finding a Grey-patched mining bee – find it’s more striking waspish-looking Nomad bee, (another name for a cuckoo), Flavous nomad bee (Nomada flava).  You can see them on the ground searching out a Grey-patched mining bees’ nest to take over, and then you may spot the host bee herself.

  • The short-fringed mining bee (Andrena dorsata) is widespread too in southern England. Sporting a reddish-brown fluffy pile on her thorax, a smooth black body with thin stripes, and a very hairy dorsal fringe on the top of her back leg, the female should hopefully be easier to identify on dandelions and daisies than some of the other small, brown mining bees also around at this time of year.
  • Hairy-footed flower bees (Anthophora plumipes) have been flying for a couple of months now so you are probably becoming accustomed to seeing them darting noisily around patches of comfrey and wallflowers with their tongues outstretched. Many of the black females will have mated and are now busy collecting pollen on their hairy hind legs for their young.
  • Ashy mining bees (Andrena cineraria) A distinctive black and grey stripped bee (around 11-14mm), which nests in bare ground, footpaths and tracks. Although solitary, they nest next door to each other in dense aggregations, so hundreds can emerge at the same time. But don’t worry, solitary bees don’t sting and are short-lived (around 2 months)!
  • The Mourning bee (Melecta albifrons) is another black and grey bee. Her coat is a fluffy grey/black colour, edged with lateral white spots. Despite her cute appearance, these are the Hairy-footed flower bees’ cuckoo. The female lays her eggs in the already made nest and when her larvae hatch they steal the pollen collected by the Hairy-footed flower bee.  A quarter of the 20,000 plus bee species on the planet are cuckoos.

Top tip for telling a Mourning bee from an Ashy mining bee – the former is rounder and fluffier, like its host bee, and also has lateral whitish spots down its body. The Ashy mining bee has a longer, smoother black body and is often found near to the ground nesting in large aggregations.

  • Common mini-miner (Andrena minutula). If you see a tiny mining bee (4-5mm) at this time of year, chances are it will be this mini-miner bee because as its name suggests it’s the most common of the 10 species of mini-miners in the UK. They have a hairy fringe along the thorax and markings on their head if you can get that close. They are most visible on dandelion type flowers and sallow (willows). They nest in loose soil in large groups.
  • Blue mason bee (Osmia caerulescens) – bit smaller than the more common Red mason bees, the males, which are flying now, have a fluffy brown pile of hair over a dark metallic-coloured body. The females look blueish-black with a box-shaped head. They will nest in manmade bee hotels, but construct the cells and plug the tubes with chewed pieces of leaf. You may see them on a variety of flowers in an urban garden. The females come out a week or so after the males and they are around until July.

How to help solitary bees in May:

  1. Plant wallflowers and comfrey for long-tongued Hairy-footed flower bees. Flowering fruit trees, willows, spurges, alkanet and forget-me-nots and geraniums for Red mason bees, and mining bees.
  2. For more plants, shrubs and trees that are good for different types of bees, see our Plants for Bees and Trees for Bees guides and blog about Shrubs for Bees.
  3. Leave old mortar untouched as Hairy-footed flower bees and Red mason bees may be nesting here.
  4. It’s not too late to make cob bricks with holes in that Hairy-footed flower bees may nest in. See how to make them with clay soil, builders’ sand, straw and water in this wonderful video by ecologist John Walters.
  5. It’s not too late to install bee hotels in a warm location at least a metre off the ground, where Red mason bees can check-in and lay their eggs. We like to use these flat-pack bee hotels we have made, filled with either cardboard tubes or bamboo tubes that are 150mm long and around 5mm in diameter.
  6. Leave a patch of bare earth for mining bees to burrow.
  7. Leave a patch of bare, wet earth for Red mason bees to collect mud to make partition walls in the tubes where they are nesting and to plug the end of the tubes.
  8. Don’t mow the lawn to let dandelions and clovers grow. Small, brown mining bees are easiest to see on bright yellow dandelions. I now let dandelions grow in my herbaceous perennial flower borders to spot these bees.
  9. Ditch the weed killers and pesticides.

Top rooftops for bees

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The rooftop garden at Bow Bells House in Bread Street, was found to be the third best rooftop garden for pollinators in the City in 2024 and the six best greenspace for pollinators out of all the private gardens surveyed in the square mile by ecologist Dr Konstantinos Tsiolis for the charity Pollinating London Together.

The result is a vindication of the important role roof gardens have to play in providing habitat to pollinators in urban areas. Moreover, it belies the notion that bees and other pollinators will not forage and possibly nest above a certain height. Bow Bells House garden is high up on the eighth storey. There are advantages to being high up, notably that unlike many ground floor gardens in the City, it is unlikely to be shaded by a tall building. Since pollinators are cold-blooded and need sunlight to warm up and create the energy to power their flight muscles, they prefer to forage on sunny rooftops than shaded courtyards.

Each garden or greenspace was scored against the following critera:

  • the value of plants as forage for pollinators throughout their lifecycle stages
  • suitable and well maintained nesting resources
  • pesticide use
  • monitoring
  • number of pollinator species/groups found.

Bow Bells House scored scored highly for:

  • a good diversity and abundance of plants for forage throughout the year
  • three small bee hotels mostly occupied
  • no pesticide use
  • regular monitoring
  • 15 different pollinators recorded on site during monthly visits in the summer, including Green furrow bees (Lasioglossum morio), Four-banded flower bee (Anthophora quadrimaculata), Wool carder bees (Anthidium manicatum), Red mason bees (Osmia bicornis) and a number of hoverflies, a drone fly and a cabbage white butterfly.

Steps to success

I’ve created and maintained the two large planters on Bow Bells House for a few years now for Savills, which managed the office block. I was first invited to take over the maintenance of the planters and to improve the planting for bees in 2021. We added 2 bee hotels for Red Mason bees in 2023 after the bee-friendly planting was established and honeybee hives had been removed.

These are are number of reasons why I think the garden is such a hit with pollinators:

  • Unlike many rooftops it is not used for any other purpose other than pollinator habitat so it doesn’t have to look neat and tidy or to be landscaped. (That is not to say that a neat, landscaped roof-garden can’t be just as good for bees, but it has allowed us to experiment more).
  • I’ve been able to experiment with different plants to see which thrive in the conditions and provide the best forage for pollinators
  • I have allowed ‘weeds’ that have self-seeded to grow if they provide food for pollinators, such as gorse and thistles
  • I have prevented certain plants and ‘weeds’ from dominating – this takes hard work and time
  • It has a timed irrigation system so plants thrive even in drought conditions (before the irrigation system was installed we lost plants because the shallow depth of the planters means the soil dries out very quickly)
  • Honeybee hives were removed a few years ago so that other pollinators could forage without so much competition (however there are hives nearby so there is still a preponderance of honeybees foraging on the roof).

In total 23 greenspaces in the City were scored for their effectiveness for pollinators in between May – September 2024. Of these, 10 were rooftops.

The full report of of the Greenspace Habitat Survey 2024 will be available next month.

The 2023 report is here.

More information about Pollinating London Together here.

Improvements that could be made to Bow Bells House:

  • Sand mounds – to see if they provide nesting sites for mining bees
  • Piles of wooden logs drilled with different diameter holes – to see if they provide nesting sites for other cavity-nesting bees.

Bees of Costa Rica

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We saw some amazing bees in Costa Rica between December 2024 – February 2025. They have over 700 species, but unfortunately due to wet conditions and colder than average temperatures in some areas, and the fact that in the jungle all the flowers are at the top of the tree canopy, we didn’t see a huge number. But those we did see included:

Metallic green orchid bee (Euglossa) collecting fragrance from a patch of Peace Lilies (Spathiphyllum canniflium) in a famous botanical gardens. The bee is a male collecting fragrance from the plant with which he will woo a female bee. He stores the fragrant oils inside his hind legs and disperses them with his wings during courtship. And the females are seduced by the wafts of perfume, or just impressed by how many different scents the male has managed to collect. No one knows for sure. This means, that unlike males in most bee groups, make orchid bees are important pollinators when they are collecting the fragrances. There are some 40 species of Euglossa in Costa Rica. We were hoping to see more green ones, and metallic blue, red, purple and copper ones. They are around 10-15mm long, so easy to see. Unfortunately the only other ones we saw were at the University of Costa Rica bee collection.

Eulaema cingulata – until I visited Costa Rica I thought all orchid bees were small and metallic coloured, and only foraged on orchids. But they can also be big and fluffy like this one below which is around 28mm long, and looks like a bumblebee with a long body and collects pollen in baskets on its hind legs. Its collecting fragrance from the Peace Lily and pollen and nectar from Stachytarpheta frantzil, a purple flower popular with all pollinators including humming birds.

Mesoamerican bumblebee (Bombus ephippiatus), is one of only seven bumblebee species in Costa Rica. They can only live in the country’s cooler mountainous areas (above 1600 metres). They nest underground in abandoned rodent nests like UK bumblebees, which is perhaps why we saw this one is on the ground. She is the size of a Buff-tailed bumblebee, but looks like she is wearing fluffy, cream-coloured shoulder pads.

Tetragonisca angustula are one of 54 species of stingless bee in Costa Rica. They live in colonies like honeybees – but only about 10,000 of them – and make wax and honey. They don’t sting, but if threatened can bite with their mandibles. Some species are more aggressive than others. Luckily these little orange bees, 4mm long, were harmless as their nest was in the wall cavity of a cabin where we were staying for a week. They made the tube entrance to the nest from resin and wax. It was fascinating to watch them building and adapting it.

Lemon bees (Lestrimelita) are a species of 6mm long, glossy black, stingless bee that rob pollen from other stingless colonies. They get their name from the citrus smell they emit. When they are plundering a nest they release chemicals that overcome the host colony. Their own nest is an odd, rather ugly, irregular structure of wax and resin that sticks out of a tree cavity. These bees can be quite aggressive if people come too near to the entrance of their nest.

Centris bees number around 250 species in Costa Rica. We saw two: one, which hovered and looked similar to a Hairy-footed flower bee, making a nest in a wooden bee hotel; the other which we think is a Centris flavofasciata was making a nest in the sand on a beach. She reminded me of a Pantaloon bee (Dasypoda hirtipes) as she had the same oversized brushes on her hind legs.

Many thanks to the authors of Bees of Costa Rica for teaching us about the the country’s rich bee biodiversity. In particular, Prof Paul Hanson (pictured in blue shirt below) for showing us the bee collection at the University of Costa Rica.

And Mariana Acuna Cordero (below left) for meeting us in San Jose and helping to identify many of the bees we saw during our travels, and Gordon W Frankie, professor emeritus at the University of California in Berkeley, (second left) who put me and Brian in touch with Paul and Mariana and who we were lucky enough to meet by chance with Mariana at the incredibly hot Palo Verde National Park and research station the end of our travels.

Early spring bees

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If you’re new to bee spotting, now is the month when you can really begin. If you’ve been waiting all winter to get back to bee spotting, now’s the time to resume on dry, sunny days.

In March you could see three species of bumblebee:

  • The Early bumblebee (Bombus pratorum) queen is smaller (14mm) and prettier than the Buff-tailed bumblebee (which you may have seen flying over winter). The Early bumblebee queen has a fluffy yellow collar and orangey bottom.
  • The Common carder bee (Bombus pascuorum) The queen bumblebees are collecting (cardering) bits of moss to line their nest which they make above ground in undisturbed areas at the bottom of gardens. They also need nectar to fuel their flight after a long period of hibernation. Their long tongue, means you are likely to see them foraging on dead-nettles at this time of year.

(You will also likely see big Buff-tailed bumblebees this month as they are our most common bee with their golden stripes and whitish tails)

Six solitary bee species:

  • Hairy-footed flower bees (Anthophora plumipes) are often mistaken for bumblebees because of their round, fluffy appearance, but they live alone (not in colonies). The brown, male Hairy-footed flower bees is starting to emerge in some warmer parts of the country and bigger, black females will soon follow. But most of us will have to wait a bit longer to see both of them. They visit Pulmonaria (lungwort) and other flowers with bell-shaped flowers. The males suck up the nectar with their long, straw-like tongues (proboscis) to build up their energy for mating when the females appear. A male will often jealously guard a patch of flowers where he hopes to get lucky, and chase off other potential suitors. More than one male can often be seen in pursuit of a female.
  • Buffish mining bee (Adrena nigroaenea) is one of our most common garden mining bees widespread across England. Around the size of a honeybee but a bit stockier, this 10-11mm-long bee has a dense fluffy brown pile on the top of its thorax. It can be tricky to identify from other brown bees. It nests in footpaths, flowerbeds and lawns. Although solitary, these bees nest next door to each other in large groups. Like all solitary bees, the males appear a couple of weeks before the females.
  • Male Red mason bees (Osmia bicornis) can emerge towards the end of the month to feed on blossoming fruit trees and shrubs. If you have a bee hotel you may see these cavity nesting bees checking out of the mud-plugged tubes. They eat their way out. The male eggs are laid at the front of the tubes making it easier for them to emerge earlier than the females. They are a little smaller (6 – 8mm) than a honey bee (9-10mm), more gingery and have a rounder bottom.
  • Male Orange-tailed mining bees (Andrena haemorrhoa) are a little smaller (8-11mm) and less robust than Buffish mining bees. The smaller males have buff on their face and a brown pile on the thorax and at the tip of their tail. Their name derives from the larger females (which may not be out until April) which have an orange-tipped tail. They took up residence one summer in our Bee Observation Box, which I will put up next month.
  • Gwynne’s mining bee (Andrena bicolor) is a bit harder to spot, being 7-11mm, but look down and you may see them burrowing through soil on south-facing banks. Although solitary, they nest next door to each other underground in aggregations, so hundreds could emerge at the same time. But don’t worry, solitary bees don’t sting! The female has a reddish-brown pile on the top of her thorax and hairy pollen brushes on her back legs. The males are much blacker and shinier. They seem to forage on most spring flowers and as such are seen throughout England and Wales.
  • Common mini-miner (Andrena minutula). If you see a tiny mining bee (4-5mm) at this time of year, chances are it will be this male mini-miner bee because as its name suggests it’s the most common of the 10 species of mini-miners in the UK. They have a hair fringe along the thorax and marking on their head if you can get that close. They are most visible on dandelion type flowers and sallow (willows). They nest in loose soil in large groups.

Bee mimic of the month:

Many people confuse the Dark-edged bee-fly (Bombylius major) for a bee (which is why we’ve included it). Not surprising there is confusion, because it’s a great mimic – round and fluffy like a small bumblebee (14mm long). It’s an example of Batesian mimicry which involves a harmless species mimicking a harmful one to avoid predation. This Bombylius is very visible in the spring, hovering around green alkanet and wallflowers. The easiest way to tell it apart from a bee is its long, spindly legs, its large eyes and it has two wings (bees have four wings) which stick out at a 45c angle when it rests, whereas bees usually stick their wings behind them.

The honey bee (Apis mellifera) workers (14mm) leave the hive when its 13c. Shaped like a wasp, they have black and amber stripes. Look up and you will see them high up on fruit trees, pussy willows and hazel and alder collecting nectar and pollen to take home to feed their queen and thousands of hungry larvae that will develop into workers and drones. (We’ve not included them in our Bees to See in March guide above as we wish to raise awareness about solitary bees and bumblebees).

How to help bees this month:

Gardening for bumblebees:

  1. Leave a patch of the garden wild for nesting sites and don’t disturb a nesting site if you find one in a compost bin, under a shed, or even in a watering can (it will only last until the end of the summer).
  2. Put up a box for blue tits. After the chicks have fledged, the box may be inhabited by Tree bumblebees (Bombus hypnorum). The colony will vacant at the end of summer, so the blue tits can use it again next spring.
  3. Plant primroses, Forget- me-nots, Rosemary and heathers to provide food this month for short-tongued bumblebees.
  4. Longer-tongued bumblebees like Common carder bees prefer dead-nettles and wallflowers.
  5. Leave ‘weeds’ like dandelions and alkanet to grow. They provide much-needed pollen and nectar in early spring. And you’ll see lots of different bees coming to feed on a clump of alkanet.
  6. Sow seeds inside now to create more flowers later in the summer. Sweet peas, sunflowers, cosmos and Anise hyssop are some of the easiest to grow in pots. Try growing on a heated mat until the seeds germinate. I’m also going to try Chives, Viper’s bugloss and cornflowers outside next month.
  7. Instead of seeds, you can buy bee-friendly plug plants that are quicker to establish. My favourites are stocked by Rosybee.
  8. Don’t mow the lawn to let clovers flower.
  9. Ditch the weed killers, like Round-up, and any pesticides and bug sprays you may be using on your roses, or any other plants.

Gardening for solitary bees:

  1. Plant lungwort, wallflowers, dead-nettles, early-flowering comfrey and flowering currants (Ribes) for long-tongued Hairy footed flower bees. Red mason bees and mining bees, with shorter tongues prefer flowering fruit trees, willows, spurges, alkanet and forget-me-nots.
  2. Leave old mortar untouched as Hairy-footed flower bees may be nesting here.
  3. Make cob bricks with holes in that Hairy-footed flower bees could nest in instead.
  4. When the weather is dry and warming up a bit, I install bee-hotels in a warm location at least a metre off the ground, where Red mason bees (Osmia bicornis) can check-in and lay their eggs. We’ve designed our own wooden bee hotels which we stuff with cardboard tubes.
  5. Leave a patch of bare earth for mining bees to burrow and nest, and where Red mason bees can collect soil to plug their nests.
  6. If you see bees coming up through your lawn, just leave them. They are a harmless mining bees emerging in spring to pollinate your garden flora.
  7. Don’t mow the lawn to let the mining bees emerge and to nest, and to let dandelions flower.
  8. Ditch the weed killers, like Round-up, and any pesticides and bug sprays you may be using on your roses, or any other plants. Leafcutter bees depend on the leaves of rose bushes to construct their nests.

Cleaning a bee observation box

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November is a good month to take apart a bee observation box in order to clean it out and store the bee cocoons in a clean, dry cardboard box in a shed over winter. I do this, so that next spring the new generation of bees will have nice, clean channels to nest in.

Here are some easy steps to cleaning out your box. It can get quite messy, so wear your gardening clothes. You’ll need an:

  • old table cloth
  • small screw driver
  • thin, metal skewer
  • small brush
  • cardboard boxes
  • washing up liquid, only to clean the Perspex cover.
  • Step1: Remove the insert from its exterior wooden box exterior and put it on a table covered in a white cloth. Do this in a cool area, like a shed or on a garden table.
  • Step 2: Remove the small screws that holds the Perspex – revealing a clearer view of the cocoons in their mud partitioned cells or nurseries.
  • Step 3: Carefully (I use a metal kebab skewer) get under the cocoons and scrape out the content of each channel – flaky mud, hard pollen, delicate cocoons and flecks of poo.

Step 4: Place the smaller, male cocoons at the front of the channels on one side of your white sheet and the large female cocoons at the back of the channels on the other side if you wish to store them separately. (Remember mum always lays male eggs at the front of the nest and females at the back so the males can emerge earlier in the spring).

Step 5: Take each cocoon and gently brush the flecks of poo off with a soft brush, like a paint brush or make-up brush and place in a cardboard box. I’ve lined mine with newspaper and separated what I think are the boys from the girls.

Step 6: Clearly label the box. We have a number or bee boxes that we manage for clients and are cleaning out this winter, so we’ve also put the name of the client on the box too. Close the box and put in a dry, cool place.

Step 7: Now, clean out the channels as best you can. Get as much as the debris out as you can with the skewer and then with a brush. It’s best NOT to use a damp cloth as the water could make the wood expand. The channels don’t have to be perfectly clean, just rid of poo, old pollen, any larvae that didn’t develop into a cocoon and may harbour disease, and any unwanted pests and parasites that may have laid their eggs in the channels too.

Step 8: Clean the Perspex cover with washing up liquid and a scrubber. Dry. Then screw back onto the wooden channels. (Photo to come). Store in a dry place over winter. Dispose of the debris in your compost bin.

A handful of bees still flying

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Bumblebee colonies have for the most part finished, with a few new queens still stocking up on nectar before they hunker down for their winter diapause, while all adult solitary bees, save for a few remaining ivy bees, have ended their life cycle. The new generation won’t appear until next spring or summer. Managed honeybees will forage on mild days for any nectar to take back to their hive. With so few bee species to choose from, it should at least be easier to identify the ones you do see!

Tips for IDing November bumblebees:

  • Buff-tailed bumblebees (Bombus terrestris) – these large, fluffy, golden-striped bumblebees are the ones you’re most likely to see between now and March, especially if you live in a city in the south of the UK where the queens produce a third brood that lives through the winter, taking advantage of winter-flowering shrubs in parks and gardens. As a result, you’ll see queens, workers and males flying throughout the year. The queens are easily recognisable from their huge size (up to 24mm) and distinctive buff coloured bottom. You often hear their loud buzz before you see them. The workers are smaller (16mm) and have a white tail. Both of these castes are female. The 14mm males look similar to the workers. How you can tell them apart is from the brightly-coloured blobs of pollen, which only the females collect on their hind legs to take back to the nest. Further north, where the Buff-tailed bumblebees aren’t yet active over winter, you may still see a queen Buff-tailed bumblebee at this time of year stocking up on nectar and looking for a dry, secure place to spend her winter diapause (like hibernation), from which she will emerge in early spring.
  • Common carder bees (Bombus pascuorum) – if you see a 15mm fluffy brown bee on flowering salvias or Fuchsia at this time of year, chances are they will be the new queens having a final nectar feast before bedding down somewhere snug for the winter months, such as a pile of old leaves, long grass, or under the garden shed.

How to ID November solitary bees:

  • Ivy bees (Colletes hederae) – If you’ve not yet seen an ivy bee, there’s a slim chance you may this month if ivy is still flowering where you live. But hurry, their short life cycle is nearly over. Once the adult female bees have laid all their eggs, and provisioned each one with pollen from the ivy flowers, their six to eight week life cycle is complete. To spot an ivy bee, look for an insect with a fluffy ginger pile on top of its thorax (though it may be a duller brown by now) feeding on the last of the tiny, white ivy flowers. It’s the fluffy thorax that sets the 13mm ivy bee apart from honey bees and hoverflies (See our Is it a bee or a hoverfly? guide.)

How to ID honey bees:

Western honey bees (Apis millefera) – we’ve included these managed bees this month because you are likely to see them foraging for nectar on late-flowering blooms, such as Geranium Rozanne and Tickseed, to take back to their hive before the winter. They may also be foraging on the last ivy flowers. They are around 10mm long with a slim, tapered gold and brown stripy body. They can be easily confused with other stripy insects, such as ivy bees and or the Marmalade hoverfly.

How to help bees in November:

  1. Cosmos, Penstemon, Fuchsia, salvias, dahlias, tickseed, Comfrey and Geranium Rozanne are all still flowering for late-flying bees, along with the shrub Fatsia japonica, so try to have some in your garden or in pots or planters.
  2. Since most bee species don’t fly in the colder months, now’s the time to think ahead to next spring when a new generation of bees start emerging. Make you garden, roof terrace, patio or other outside space a smorgasbord of bee-friendly spring bulbs. If you only do one thing, plant those crocus bulbs you’ve been meaning to before the ground gets too hard. Plant them under trees, in lawns and hanging baskets, and pots, as well as flower beds. They will give the early flying bumblebee queens food to fuel their flight. Here are the best spring bulbs for bees.
  3. For bee-friendly November window boxes, Cosmos and Mexican fleabane (Erigeron karvinskianus), are still blooming. I’ve just brought some magnificent magenta-coloured Cyclamen to brighten up my window box for autumn and feed passes bees and added crocus bulbs for a colourful display in early spring that will feed the bees.
  4. The Strawberry tree (Arbutus unedo) feeds bees in November and it’s nectar and pollen contains medicinal properties for bumblebees, so try to grow one in your garden or a even a large pot. If you’d like a spring or summer flowering tree instead, now is the perfect month to decide which tree you could add to your garden to provide bee food next year. If you order it now, you can plant a tree, while trees are dormant during late autumn or winter. Also, speak to your council tree officer about planting more bee-friendly trees in local streets and parks. Trees can provide an abundant source of food at times of year when bees may be going hungry like early spring and late summer. For advice on which tree to plant see our Trees for Bees guide. Some bee-friendly trees grow very well in pots, including small fruit trees such as crab apples. My favourite to feed the Red mason bees is Malus sylvestris ‘Evereste’.
  5. If you live in a milder part of the UK, it’s worth planting winter-flowers shrubs, such as Mahonia, and perennials, such a Hellebores, to feed Buff-tailed bumblebees who fly all year round. More information on flowers here and shrubs here.
  6. Have you ever thought of growing a wildlife-friendly hedge? Well this month is the time to get planning. Hawthorn, Blackthorn, Field Maple, Beech, Hornbeam, Purging buckthorn and Dog rose are some of plants that this RHS video suggests. It all really depends on what size garden you have, how prickly you want your hedge and how much you want it to flower for pollinators. We have a small Cotoneaster hedge in our small, urban front garden which mitigates pollution, has white flowers that feed bees in the summer, and berries for the blackbirds in winter. Even privet hedges are good for pollinators if they are allowed to flower. Bare-root hedges can be planted from late autumn into winter.
  7. Divide bee-friendly perennials that have become overcrowded. Find another place for them in the garden or give them away to friends and neighbours to make their gardens more bee-friendly.
  8. Seeds to grow under glass this month including wild cornflower, cowslip, poppies and Pink Hawk’s Beard (Crepis rubra) – a new hardy annual I’ve just come across which looks a bit like a pink dandelion . Yellow rattle can be grown outdoors and is useful if you are trying to convert part of your lawn into a wild flower meadow as it supresses the grasses and will allow the wild flowers to grow.
  9. It’s tempting to give your garden a thorough tidy at this time of year after the autumn leaves have fallen. But it’s best to leave your garden a bit messy: piles of leaves and bits of old, rotting wood as queen bumblebees and other insects may find them perfect winter habitat.
  10. Clean out your bee hotels and bee boxes for solitary bees and store the bee cocoons in a dry, cool place over winter. Read here for more information on bee hotel winter management.

There will be plenty more jobs we can do over the winter months to help bees thrive next spring. So, look out for future posts each month.

For information on IDing and helping bees earlier in the year see my  Bees to See in October blog here, Bees to See in September blog here, Bees to See in August blog here,  Bees to See in July blog here, Bees to See in June blog here,  Bees to See in May blog here and Bees to See in April blog here, Bees to See in March blog here.

October 2024 bees and mimics

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The female ivy bees are out. If you’ve not seen one yet, find a flowering ivy bush in the autumnal sunshine. This is where you’re likely to see them feeding on the tiny, white, pin cushion-like flowers for nectar and pollen, alongside slightly bigger honeybees (14mm) that they can easily be confused with. Just to make it harder to ID them, they will be joined by heaps of stripy hoverflies. The ID tips below are designed to help you tell apart an ivy bee from a honeybee. And our Is it a bee or a hoverfly? guide should help distinguish both from their hoverfly mimics – three of them are featured above in.

How to ID ivy bees:

Ivy bees (Colletes hederae) – males are (8-9mm) – a bit smaller than a honeybee – and female ivy bees are 11-13mm – a bit larger. But the best way to tell them apart is that the ivy bees have a gingery pile on their thorax and much more segmented shiny bands on their abdomen. Honeybees are social bees living in large colonies so will likely see more honeybees on ivy if there are hives nearby. Ivy bees are solitary (although they can nest next door to each other in large aggregations) , so you may only see a few.  It can take a while before you can distinguish them, but it’s worth being patient.

Ten reasons why ivy mining bees are so special:

  1. They are the last solitary bee to emerge in the year.
  2. They were only described as a separate species in 1993 in Germany. According to bee expert, Ted Benton, the lateness of this discovery may in part be explained by their similarity to two other late-flying close relatives: Heather bees (Colletes succinctus) and Sea Aster bees (Colletes halophilus).
  3. They were first discovered in England just 20 years ago, in an ivy bush in Dorset in 2001.
  4. There is a real thrill when you see one for the first time, because it means you have learned to distinguish its features (gingery pile on its thorax and segmented shiny bands on its abdomen) from the honeybee.
  5. They only fly for around six weeks, when the ivy is flowering, so they seem more special than bees that fly all summer.
  6. If you see one north of Shropshire, Staffordshire, Norfolk or south Wales you can contribute to a mapping project to show their spread across Britain.
  7. They nest in huge aggregations of thousands of bees, making burrows in loose soil and sandy banks. It’s an amazing sight watching them emerge in late August/early September. I’ve never seen it, but I hope to create a sand bank somewhere that may become a nesting site. This video gives a flavour.
  8. Their symbiotic relationship with ivy – emerging to feed on its nectar and pollen and pollinating it at the same time – really demonstrates the connection between bees and flowering plants. This relationship has evolved over 60 million years.
  9. Watching them at work helps to connect us with nature on our doorstep. We don’t need to visit the ‘countryside’, or far flung places, to see nature in action.
  10. They are also called plasterer bees, because like all bees with the Latin name Colletes, they line the nests they create in their burrows with a cellophane-like waterproof and fungus-resistant substance that they secret. Isn’t that amazing!

How to ID other October solitary bees:

Common furrow bee (Lasioglossum calceatum) – if you see a small black, shiny insect with a long body on a flower late in the summer or in autumn, chances are it will be this bee. The yellow legs in the photo above, should help, and there are some band markings on the body, but I find these hard to see when it’s only 8-10mm.

Tips for IDing October bumblebees:

  • Common carder bees (Bombus pascuorum) – the workers will often sport a faded ginger/brown thorax that looks more straw-coloured at this time of year. They will often be seen foraging on Helianthus ‘Lemon Queen’, Michaelmas daisies and Salvia ‘hot lips’ in my garden, alongside new, more vibrant looking queens and males stocking up on nectar before the winter. The queens are the largest (15mm) and the workers the smallest (11-13mm). Despite its English name, which derives from its behaviour of teasing out (carder is the old fashioned word for teasing out) bits of moss to cover its nest, it is a social bumblebee, hence its scientific Latin name Bombus.
  • Tree bumblebees (Bombus hypnorum) – I’ve really missed seeing these white-bottomed bees again this year in London. Other people too have noticed their absence. Further north you’ll likely to see them still flying. They will be vacating any bird boxes the colony has occupied over the summer. The old queen will die, leaving new queens and males to mate, then the new queens will stock up on nectar – on ivy flowers – before finding a cosy spot to spend the winter.
  • Buff-tailed bumblebees (Bombus terrestris) – these bumblebees with dirty golden stripes are so successful that if you live in the south of the UK you are likely to see this species flying all year. This month, the workers (13-18mm) and huge new queens (20-24mm) may be supping on ivy nectar alongside other bee species. In the south, the queen will be looking for a nest to produce a brood that lives throughout the winter. Further north, they are more likely stocking up on nectar before their dormant period and will appear early next spring to find a nest.

How to help bees in October:

  1. There are still a few things flowering in the garden this month: Helianthus ‘Lemon Queen’, Michaelmas daisies and annual Cosmos grown from seed for short tongued or medium tongued bees; Penstemon, Fuchsia, Salvia ‘hot lips’ and other salvias for long-tongues bees. The shrubby blue Caryopteris x clandonensis (Bluebeard) and red Perscicaria are both visited by bees, and of course, Geranium Rozanne is still flowering. But flowering ivy is by far the most valuable nectar and pollen source at this time of year, so if you have any mature, flowering ivy don’t prune it until after it’s flowered.
  2. For bee-friendly October window boxes, try Cosmos, Mexican fleabane (Erigeron karvinskianus), and Cyclamen.
  3. Think about which tree you could add to your garden to provide bee food, or speak to your council tree officer about planting more bee-friendly trees in streets and parks. It’s best to plant trees during the winter when they are dormant.
  4. This month is all about planting spring bulbs to feed bees next year. Plant as many crocus bulbs as you can in window boxes, pots, hanging baskets, flower beds and lawns, as they will provide much-need early pollen and nectar for bumblebee queens when they start flying next spring. I’m also going to plant more  Muscari Armeniacum (Grape hyacinth) bulbs again this autumn to feed Hairy footed-flower bees in April and May. I’m also going to try blue Scilla Siberica and Chionodoxa too, which flower earlier in March and April, Unfortunately, most daffodils and tulips don’t feed pollinators.
  5. October is a good time to divide perennials that have become overcrowded. Find another place for them in the garden or give them away to friends and neighbours to make their gardens more bee-friendly.
  6. If planting conditions are still good this month (not too cold and wet), plant wallflowers. There are also some seeds that can be grown under glass this month including wild cornflower and cowslip. Yellow rattle can be grown outdoors and is useful if you are trying to convert part of your lawn into a wild flower meadow as it suppresses grasses to allow wild flowers to grow.
  7. Leave parts of the garden untidy as queen bumblebees may have found a nook or cranny to spend the winter and don’t wish to be disturbed.
  8. Clean out your bee hotels and store the bee cocoons in a dry, cool place over winter. Read here for more information.

Barbican bees

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  • Rosemary,
  • Lamb’s ear (Stachys byzantina) ,
  • Bird’s foot-trefoil (Lotus corniculatus) ,
  • Thyme
  • low-growing yellow sedum,
  • Knapweed (Centaurea nigra),
  • Viper’s bugloss (Echium vulgare)
  • Lavender ‘Gross’
  • Red clover (Trifolium pratense

Finally this summer (2024), the 5 planters on the 5th floor terrace of an office opposite the Barbican finally sprung into life thanks to an irrigation system. Before it was fitted (it took a year to get it agreed and an outside tap fitted etc), the planters always looked rather sad and nothing grew well in the two very shallow ones. But the plants listed above are all now thriving and feeding passing bees in succession from early spring to late summer.

I even managed to get some photos of Common carder bees (Bombus pascuorum) on the lavender x ‘Grosso’ and Red clover in August.

This is the sorry sight in March before the watering system was installed. It is a drip system and receives 5 minutes of water every 12 hours (on top of any rain that falls). Even though we’ve had a wet spring/summer, there have been long periods without rain when the planters can dry out very quickly, so the plants conserve their nectar leaving less for hungry pollinators to consume.

Although it’s not clear from this photo, we do have Red mason bees (Osmia bicornis) nesting in the two bee hotels attached to the planters by a metal pole. In spring, the Rosemary will feed them.

Late borders

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I’m always keeping my eyes out for good late planting for bees in London. I’m happy to say it’s in abundance around St Paul’s cathedral and King’s Cross this August and September. Above is a plot bursting with Lily turf (Liriope muscari) and Japanese anemone (Anemone x hybrida) in pink and white. If you prefer more fiery colours for late boarders there are plenty of bee-friendly flowers to choose from.

Hot orange dahlias and Cosmos sulphureus – a new Cosmos for me – attract the bumblebees in front of St Paul’s, and swaths of Rudbekia are visited by solitary bees and hoverflies.

Masses of asters that flower much earlier than the traditional Michaelmas daises; and Buff-tailed bumblebees enjoying the nectar and pollen from these single-headed dahlias.

Beautiful landscape planting that’s attractive for people and pollinators in late summer/autumn and hopefully all year in a shady corner. Can’t wait to see what it looks like in spring.

September bees 2024

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As it’s been such a poor season for bees in my garden and rooftops, I’m just pleased to see Common carder bees (Bombus pascuorum) finally out in force. One of our most common bumblebee species, it has been noticeably absent for most of the summer, so it’s gratifying to see these small brown fluffy bees foraging on late-flowering lavender, salvia and toadflax. What’s even more encouraging is spotting large bumblebee queens and males (which in some species look different to workers and queens). The males are looking for new queens to mate with, and the new queens, once mated, are stocking up on nectar to build up their fat reserves when they hunker down over winter. A colony that’s produced lots of queens and males is a success story.

As for solitary bees, many of the more charismatic species have completed their adult stage, but if you’re anywhere near sandy banks, look out for Pantaloon bees which are still nesting. Elsewhere, small, black solitary bees are still foraging, including Common furrow bees – easier to spot than the more diminutive Green furrow bee – and Large-headed resin bees. And there have already been reports of male Ivy bees emerging. More about that below…

Tips for IDing September bumblebees:

  • Red-tailed bumblebees (Bombus lapidarius) – increasingly rare in London, but easily recognisable when you do get a glimpse. The males, (12-14mm) which are flying now are one of our prettiest bees with their yellow facial hair and red bottoms. The queens are much more dramatic, dressed in black with a fiery red butt. In the south, queens can produce a second colony of up to 300 bees, so it’s this second generation there are now flying. The queen is one of our biggest bumblebees: measuring 20-22mm. Workers are a smaller version of the queen (14-16mm). They have been spotted them on chives and alliums. I’ve heard they like yellow flowers, and last year I did see one on the yellow vetch, Bird’s-foot trefoil (Lotus corniculatus), on the 11th floor of an office block in central London!
  • Tree bumblebees (Bombus hypnorum) – if you’ve been bee spotting all summer, you may be quite adept at identifying tree bumblebees by now with their ginger thorax, black abdomen and white tails. Perhaps you’ve even had them nesting in a bird box in your garden. However, I’ve not seen one all year, again! They seem to have disappeared from London but are doing well further north. Is it too hot for it down here now? They usually have two generations each summer so if you see any flying this month they will likely be new queens, workers and males from the second 150-strong colony. The only difference in appearance between the queen, males and workers (known as the three castes) is their size. Queens are a larger 14-20mm, males 11-13mm and workers 13-15mm.
  • Common carder bees (Bombus pascuorum) live up to their common name at this time of year by being frequent garden visitors. Queens are now producing new queens, which are a sizeably bigger than the 11- 13mm workers. Both castes will be foraging, alongside males too. The castes all have the same ginger pile on their thorax, but the queens and males’ will be more striking as the workers’ colouring fades with age to a light brown. They are the smallest bumblebees flying in September.
  • Other bumblebees you’re likely to see this month are Buff-tailed bumblebees (Bombus terrestris).  This month huge mated queens (18mm) are flying, as well as workers and males. In the south these queens are stocking up on nectar and looking for a suitable nesting site to raise a new colony during the mild winter. Further north, the queens are stocking up on nectar and looking for a suitable place to overwinter.

How to ID September solitary bees:

  • Pantaloon bee (Dasypoda hirtipes) – I always associate this sand-loving mining bee (13mm in length) with beaches because of the way the female uses her large, rather comical oversized pollen brushes on her hind legs, known as ;pantaloons’ to dig a hole for nesting in coastal dunes. But she is just as happy on sandy brownfield sites in mainly southern England and Wales. Her nest can be distinguished from other burrowing bees by the large fan of sandy spoil she leaves to one of side of the hole. You can see how she makes her nest in this great video. The males don’t sport the ‘pantaloons’ but still have long fair hairs on their hind legs.
  • Ivy bee (Colletes hederae) – one of the highlights of autumn is being able to spot an ivy mining bee. To the untrained eye, they can look deceptively like a honeybee, especially as they are both found en masse buzzing around nectar-rich ivy flowers. However, look closely and you’ll see the ivy bee has more hair on its thorax and its body has much more defined and shiny segmented bands in buff and brown alternate colours. The males, which are out a couple of weeks before the females, sports a brown quiff and are a little smaller (8-9mm) than honeybees (10mm). Despite their name,  Ivy bees can gather nectar (and the females pollen) from a variety of late flowers before the ivy flowers, but the easiest way to spot them is to inspect the tiny white ivy flowers. Ivy bees belongs to the Colletes family, which mine into the ground to make their nests – often next door to each other in very large numbers – and they line their nest with a cellophane-like waterproof and fungus-resistant substance, which is why Colletes are also called plasterer bees. If you have a south-facing slope with light soil you may see hundreds, even thousands, of these bees emerging from their individual nests. It is easy to forget that they are solitary bees, ass you can see on this great video from the Hampshire & Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust. 

Fascinating fact – the Ivy bee was only described as a separate species in 1993 and wasn’t discovered in the UK until 2001 in Dorset. Unlike the other newcomer, the Tree bumblebee, Ivy bees aren’t thought to have spread to the north of England. But if you see one beyond the Midlands, please report your sighting to BWARS (Bees, Wasps and Ants Recording Society).

  • Common furrow bee (Lasioglossum calceatum) – these small solitary bees (8-10mm) with an elongated black shiny body have been flying since early spring. So there is no excuse for not recognising them in daisies and geranium flowers. The ones you will be seeing now are males and females that were born in July and can fly until October. They makes nests in the ground.
  • Green furrow bee (Lasioglossum morio) – an even smaller (4-5mm), black solitary bee, this one has a green metallic hue. But you can only really see this if you have a net to catch the bee and put it into a glass tube and then study it with an eye glass. I’m still not confident catching bees in a net, but I’ve been fortunate enough to go out a few times with an ecologist who is. And I got to see some of these bees close up in a tube and could clearly see the green. They are widespread and we’ve found them a number of times eight floors up on London rooftops foraging on hebes and a wildflower called Hoary willowherb (Epilobium parviflorum).

Fascinating fact: Both of these burrowing, furrow bees can display primitively eusocial behaviour, which means the early flying females in warm climates are actually queen bees that in early summer produce workers. These worker bees will collect nectar and pollen for the new females and males that are born later in the summer.

  • Large-headed resin bees (Heriades truncorum) – another small (8mm), black, robust bee often seen at this time of year in the south of England on yellow composite flowers like sunflowers. The easiest way to distinguish it from other small, black bees is that it carries pollen on the underside of its abdomen (like a leafcutter). And it make its nest in a pre-existing cavity in wood. After she has laid her eggs in the cavity, she plugs it with tiny bits of grit and stone that she collects and then glues it all together with resin collected from nearby trees. You can help this bee by drilling holes into wooden logs and attaching them to a wall. See how to make a nest for this bee. 

Fascinating fact: She is found in Europe and the east coast of the United States and is thought to have possibly been introduced in the UK by Victorians in imported wood )

Another solitary bee you may still see this month is the tiny Common yellow-faced bee (Hylaeus communis) – these small (5-7mm) predominately black bees with tiny yellow eye spots (female) or a triangle (male) on their face has been a familiar sight in gardens since mid summer (if you’ve been able to spot such a diminutive bee). They plaster their nests, but unlike other bees collect pollen in a special stomach, called a crop, and regurgitate it to make a semi-liquid mixed with pollen to feed the larvae.

 Fascinating fact: They have been observed blowing bubbles of nectar to evaporate the water. This is known as water homeostasis and it concentrates and thickens the nectar/pollen mixture making it tacky like honey. The bee’s eggs and larvae ‘stick’ to its surface, unlike many other solitary bee larvae which ‘sit’ on top of the more solid pollen mixture. Here is a video of the bubble blowing. (Thanks to Nurturing Nature and Api:Cultural for the info and footage).

How to help bees in September

  1. Plant flowers that bloom this month to provide important late sources of nectar and pollen. Sedum, Michaelmas daisy, dahlia, fuchsia, Devil’s bit scabious, Coreopsis (Tickseed) Perovskia Blue Spire, commonly known as Russian sage, and wild marjoram (Origanum) are all good, and don’t forget Common sneezeweed (Helenium autumnale), the solitary bees favourite, according to Rosybee nursery’s fantastically helpful research . A particular fav in our garden was Helianthus ‘Lemon Queen’ a slug-proof sunflower, and of course, the Geranium Rozanne is still going strong! For the long-tongued bumblebees, black horehound, salvias, and buddleia are still flowering.
  2. The best late forage for short-tongued honeybees and Ivy bees without a doubt is ivy. But ivy only flowers when it is mature and that can take 11 years! So if you have any sprawling ivy that needs a trim, please don’t cut it back until after it’s flowered this month.
  3. If you only have a window box, Mexican fleabane (Erigeron karvinskianus), trailing nasturtium and Bird’s-foot trefoil are still flowering. Add sedum and annuals such as cosmos and snap dragons. If you grow herbs in pots and window boxes, let the mint and oregano keep flowering.
  4. Gather seeds Store them in labelled paper bags in a cool, dry place for sowing or scattering next spring. Or, just scatter them around your garden now while the soil is still warm. Lightly rake the soil, scatter the seeds, cover them with fine soil and firm down.
  5. Leave parts of the garden undisturbed, as ground nesting bumblebee queens may be looking for a snug place to overwinter – and don’t chop down old, dead stems that solitary bees may have laid eggs in.
  6. Boost your wildflower meadow . If you haven’t already done your summer cut, do it now, scarify the cut meadow to expose bare soil where seeds can grown, then add yellow rattle seeds to suppress grasses taking over next year. Finally, add perennial plug plants of wild flowers that will grow well in the soil to feed bees in the future.
  7. Ditch the weed killers and pesticides. 
  8. Take semi-ripe cuttings if you are patient and want to propagate heathers, ivy, Mahonia, Escallonia, flowering-currents, verbena, penstemon and salvias. The cuttings should be ready to pot on next spring.
  9. Create a bank of sand mixed with some clay soil against a south facing wall, or a free-standing mound, for mining bees which like to burrow into sand. It needs to be about 400mm deep. Create steps in the sand as some bees like to nest vertically and others horizontally. The clay will help the bank to keeps its shape after the bees have tunnelled into it. If you’re lucky you may get ivy mining bees nesting in it this autumn next door to each other in large neighbourhoods.
  10. Drill holes in blocks of wood – 10mm, 8mm, 6mm and 4mm diameters and up to 30 cm deep (although some bees only need a depth of a few centimetres to nest in) – and screw them to a sturdy support. Drill holes in existing structures such as fence posts, or dead trees. Large-headed resin bees, scissor bees and yellow-faced bees may take up residence, but probably not until next year.
  11. Keep a look out for yellow-legged Asian hornets which could have a severe impact on our wild bee populations. 47 credible sightings had been made by 30/8/24 in Kent and Sussex. Report any sightings using the Asian Hornet Watch App.

Summer pots for bees

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A new client wanted five planters located on the third floor roof of their Clerkenwell office in central London. The roof was already covered in a sedum mat which had looked dead when we first visited in February, but when we came to do the install in June (the project had been delayed), the sedum mat was blooming! So we placed four 500mm x 500mm x 280mm wooden hexagonal planters on the four corners of the sedum mat to avoid disturbing existing bee-friendly flowers.

We filled the planters with long-flowering perennials as to feed a variety of bee species in late summer, and installed a drip irrigation system in case of a drought. On our first maintenance visit at the end of July, we were surprised to see so many bees.

On the yellow, peak-like flowers of Bird’s-foot trefoil trailing at the back of the planters we saw Common carder bees (Bombus pascuorum), on the purple Campanula flowers we saw tiny, black Yellow-face bees (Hylaeus) and the Furrow bees (Lasioglossum) with their longer, banded abdomen. We also saw the Furrow bees on the white daises of Erigeron karvinskianus.

The tall purple spires of Veronica attracted both Buff-tailed bumblebees (Bombus terrestris) and many small, black solitary bees which I couldn’t get a good photo of, so I’m not sure if they were also Furrow bees and Yellow-face bees.

In the autumn we will plant up the planters with Crocus and Grape hyacinth (Muscari armeniacum) bulbs for early flying bumblebees and Hairy-footed flower bees.

We will add a fifth, slightly larger planter in the middle of the sedum mat and fill with Rosemary and Wallflowers (Erysimum) to feed spring-flying solitary bees.

In spring 2025, we will also install bee hotels for cavity-nesting solitary bees to nest in, and maybe an observation box if employees are interested in discovering the lifecycle of solitary bees nesting on their office.

Watch this space…

August bees

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The late summer flying bees vary hugely in size, colour and shape, from the round, fluffy bumblebees to the medium-sized, striped plasterer bee, parasitic blood bee with a red abdomen, the mining bee with yellow legs and the pantaloon bee with massive pollen brushes on its hind legs .  And the tiny black Yellow-face bees and Small scissor bees are still around. You may also notice that some of the bumblebees just got a lot larger again, like the size they were in the spring. That’s because a new generations of queen bumblebees are flying. Many will have mated with males (yellow, fluffy faces) from nearby nests and are looking for somewhere safe to hunker down for the next few months until spring when they will emerge to create their own colony.

Tips for IDing August bumblebees:

  •  Early bumblebees (Bombus pratorum) – so called because the colony produces new queen bees as early as May when other bumblebees colonies are still busy producing workers. This month a second generation of queens (13mm) could be flying along with smaller (10mm) workers and the pretty males, which have a more fluffy, yellow thorax. Don’t confuse these small males with the larger males of red-tailed bumblebees. The latter has a much bigger red bottom and is larger in size too.
  • White-tailed bumblebee (Bombus lucorum) males – if you’re lucky you may see these bright yellow banded fluffy bumblebees flying now. They are easy to distinguish from queens and workers by their much yellower thorax. At the end of the summer bumblebee queens produce males and new queens who will leave the nest and mate.

You may also see Common carder bees,  Red-tailed bumblebees, Tree bumblebees and Garden bumblebees this month, but many fewer have so far been seen this year in most parts of the country than previous year. All the castes could be out – the large queens, and smaller workers and the yellow-face males. And a new generation of cuckoo bumblebees may also be flying, such as the Field cuckoo bee (Bombus campestris), which lays its eggs in carder bees’ nests. But if the host’s nest hasn’t done well this year, there will be a lack of cuckoo bees too. Here’s a full guide to cuckoos. ID tip: They have darker wings than nest-making bumblebees and no pollen baskets because their host’s worker bees collect the pollen to feed the cuckoo bees’ females and males.

How to ID August solitary bees:

  • Blood bees (Sphecodes) can often be found where Furrow bees and some mining bees are nesting as they invade their nests.   There are several hundred species of these parasitic bees globally and around 17 in the British Isles. They range in size from 4mm to 8mm, but can be identified from other black, hairless bees by their red abdomen which looks as if it is full of blood. Telling one blood bee species from another can be very challenging, despite possessing some of the best descriptive common names such as swollen-thighed, bare-saddled and dull-headed. If you see one on heathland or coastal dunes, chances are it could be the Sandpit blood bee (Sphecodes pellucidus) . They are cleptoparasites, which means the female enters a host’s nest, opens up a cell and destroys the egg, or larvae, and replaces it with her own egg before resealing it. Females are usually found around the nests of the host, while males often hang out on a variety of daisy-like flowers and umbellifers. Tip: Don’t kill these bees to save the furrow and mining bees. Nature works in mysterious ways and we must respect that.
  • Small scissor bees (Chelostoma campanularum) – despite being the UK’s smaller bee they were easy to spot in June and July despite their diminutive size, because the 4.5mm-long males shelter in the middle of bellflowers (Campanula in Latin) during dull weather and/or at night. Now most of the bellflowers have gone, look in Hardy geraniums like Geranium Rozanne instead. A cavity nesting bee, they use small pre-existing holes in dead wood including fence posts and plug the holes with small particles including sand grains and grit, like Resin bees.  
  • Yellow-face bees (Hylaeus) are one of many small, (5mm) predominately black bees which frequents gardens from mid to late summer. Yellow-face bees have tiny yellow spots (female) or a triangle (male) on their face, and yellow on their legs. They nest in a variety of small cavities including hollow stems and manmade bee hotels and summer units if the dimensions are small enough. They line the cells of their nest with waterproof, anti-fungal resin applied with their tongue, which explains why Yellow-face bees are classified in the same family as Plasterer bees (Colletes).  You won’t see pollen on their hind legs or under their tummy, because, unusually for a bee, they carry pollen back to the nest in a special stomach, called a crop and regurgitate it to make a semi-liquid mixed with nectar to feed their brood (larvae).
  • Yellow-legged mining bee (Andrena flavipes) – are bivoltine, which means they have two generations a year. The first appears in spring and flies from March to June, and a second one from June to September, so you are seeing the second generation now. They are common in southern England and could be mistaken for honeybees, but are a bit smaller and a bit hairier and have pollen brushes (scopa) on their back legs to collect pollen, rather than scraping blobs of pollen into pollen baskets which honeybees do. They nest in large aggregations in south-facing slopes and short turf including mown lawns.
  • Four-banded flower bee (Anthophora quadrimaculata) – these small zippy banded bees with big eyes (the males are green-eyed) are fading to grey now. Look out for them darting rapidly between flowers on catmints, lavenders, Black horehound and dead-nettles, emitting a high-pitched buzz. You have most chance of spotting this bee in Greater London and the Thames Gateway than anywhere else in the UK.
  • Pantaloon bee (Dasypoda hirtipes) is a medium-sized fluffy bee easily identified by the female’s oversized orange pollen brushes, or ‘pantaloons’ on its hind legs, and its nesting behaviour. It excavates a burrow in sandy banks, coastal footpaths, and even on brownfield sites and leaves a large fan of sandy spoil to one side of the hole. Most likely to be seen in heathland and coastal sand dunes of south east England, Dorset, Norfolk and Wales. It’s one of my favourite holiday pastimes, trying to spot the spoil and then waiting to see the bee in action.
  • Davies’ plasterer bee (Colletes daviesanus) is half the size of a honeybee with a furry thorax and a shiny abdomen with grey-white stripes. There are 500 known species of plasterers – also called Colletes bees –  worldwide, but only nine in Britain. This is the main one you’ll see in your garden on any daisy-like flower and nesting in weathered sandstone walls, soft mortar or in south-facing slopes of bare soil in large aggregations with other bees of the same species.  They are called plasterer bees because they plaster the cells of the nests with a cellophane-like resin substance they produce which is both waterproof and fungus-resistant.

You may also still see leafcutter bees and small, black furrow bees foraging in parks and gardens throughout the UK at this time of year.

How to help bees in August:

  1. Plant different flowers for different bees. Hollyhocks, sunflowers, globe thistles and cardoons are all magnets at this time of year for short-tongued bees, along with open-faced dahlias. For the long-tongued bumblebees, Black horehound, Salvias, Germanders (Tuecrium) and buddleia are still flowering. And Geranium rozanne and Calamint are still going strong. Common sneezeweed (Helenium autumnale) is starting to produce coppery blooms which are a top attraction for solitary bees according to Rosybee nursery’s fantastically helpful research . Marjoram (Origanum), Anise hyssop, thyme and Bergamot, are all later-flowering herbs that do well in pots in a sunny position.
  2. If you only have a window box, Mexican fleabane (Erigeron karvinskianus), creeping thyme (Thymus serpyllum), trailing nasturtium and Bird’s-foot trefoil are still flowering. Add sedum for late flowers and annuals such as cosmos and snap dragons.
  3. If you let your lawn grow into a wildflower meadow this year, now is a good time to do what’s called the ‘haycut’. Cut to 4cm with a mower, or better still use a scythe or shears. Leave the cuttings for a few days to let seeds drop to the surface of the soil, then rake the cuttings up to reduce soil fertility and encourage more wildflowers next year.
  4. Gather seeds from plants such as poppies, love-in-a-mist, bellflowers and foxgloves. Store them in labelled paper bags in a cool, dry place for sowing or scattering next spring. Or, just scatter them around your garden now and hope for the best.
  5. Leave parts of the garden undisturbed, as ground nesting bumblebee queens may be looking for a snug place to spend the winter.
  6. Ditch the weed killers and pesticides. 
  7.  You can put up bee hotels now, but you probably won’t get any visitors until next spring. If you want to see what is happening inside a bee hotel, you could invest in an observation box with a Perspex viewing window. But again, wait until next spring to put it up.
  8. It’s still not too late to drill holes in blocks of wood – 10mm, 8mm, 6mm and 4mm diameters and up to 30 cm deep (although some bees only need a depth of a few centimetres to nest in) – and screw them to a sturdy support. Drill tiny holes in existing structures such as fence posts, or dead trees. Small scissor bees, yellow-face bees or resin bees may take up residence.
  9. Create a bank of sand mixed with some clay soil against a south facing wall for mining bees which like to burrow into sand. Create steps in the sand as some bees like to nest vertically and others horizontally. The clay will help the bank to keeps its shape after the bees have tunnelled into it. You may find Ivy bees (Colletes hederae) nesting in it next month.
  10. Provide a source of water for thirsty honeybees. This can be a shallow bowl or saucer with stones or pebbles in that the bees can stand on while they are drinking. Bees can’t swim!

RHS Hampton Court highlights

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I made a beeline for Gold medal winner Buglife’s B-Lines Garden to get some ideas for creating a small, urban bee paradise, including the attractive wooden bee towers. I also loved some of the tiny spaces designed by newly qualified garden designers, like Brian Bloodglut (pictured with me above) to demonstrate the scope of the Asteraceae family of flowering plants, including his Brian &the Blooms For the Birds garden. It’s amazing how many different Asteraceae he has crammed into such a tiny space. And the Flower Power Field below (right) was cool too, The Pollen Station in the Money Saving Garden was a reminder how important it is to vote for Nature in a General Election, which was the day after my visit.

I wasn’t the only one who loved the Making Sense Garden, above left. It won the People’s Choice Award for best Get Started Gardens.

Discovered a new flower in the Buglife garden – an African thistle (Berkheya purpurea) and I love the way that Kent Wildflower Seeds plant wildflowers, like Bird’s-foot trefoil and Clover, in pots we you would an ornamental plant.

Due to the dismal drizzle and cold, few bees were foraging on the lovely flower displays. However I did come across a lovely metal sculpture of a bumblebee, and some fun bees created by Manor Park primary school along with barrels filled with bee-friendly plants.

For all the information about the show winners, trends and plants here

Wool carder bee nesting in a park bench

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Dr Konstantinos Tsiolis is searching for signs of Wool Carder bees (Anthidium manicatum) nesting in this park bench in Christchurch Greyfriars Garden, in the City of London, near to St Paul’s Cathedral.

The hunt was carried out in June 2024 during a pollinator survey for Pollinating London Together. Konstantinos had mentioned to me that he’d found the bees nesting there in 2022, so I suggested we see if they are still using it.

Wool carder bees like to nest in cavities in wood, so it makes sense that in an urban environment they would look for an existing hole in manmade wooden structures like a park bench. Once they’ve found a suitable dark, dry cavity with enough space to lay a few dozen eggs, they need to collect fibres from specific plants to cram into the nest on which to lay their eggs. Their favourite is the soft fibres from the leaves of the Lamb’s ear plant. Below we can see the opening of the rectangular hole under the arm of the bench has been plugged with what appears to be Lamb’s ear fibres.

We didn’t actually see any bees coming and going from the bench, so we’re not sure if this is an active nest or an old one. The Wool carder bees had only started to fly when we found this nest, so we will have another look in July to see if there is any action.

Above (left) is a Wool carder bee on the Lamb’s ear flowers, and on the right is a wonderful close up photo of a Wool carder bee where it’s yellow stich-like markings are clearly visible.

You can try to help Wool carder bees, by drilling 12mm diameter holes into a wooden log and placing them near to the Lamb’s ear plant.

July bees

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Bee spotting gets a bit trickier this month, with lots of diminutive solitary bees flying this month including our tichiest UK bee, the Small scissor bee  measuring around 4.5mm and the not much larger Common-yellow face bee.  Both these tiny black bees, don’t conform to most people’s image of a bee. Luckily, larger Patchwork leafcutter bees and chunky Wool carder bees are fluffier and much easier to spot. And if you’re in the south of England, look out for the very nippy, 8mm Four-banded flower bee. If you have a bee hotel installed and see a bee with a long, pointed black-and-white tail hanging out around it, it’s likely to be a Large sharp-tail bee – the cuckoo of both leafcutters and flower bees at this time of year.

Tips for IDing July bumblebees:

  • The Common carder bee (Bombus pascuorum) is usually one of the most ubiquitous bees in my garden and many others. With her all-in-one fluffy brown coat, she’s also one of the cutest and easiest to identify foraging on a huge variety of common garden flowers with her medium-length proboscis (tongue). However, this spring/summer she has been notable by her absence, and it’s not just me who has observed this. They like to nest above ground in undisturbed areas of long grass and to line their nest with moss. Maybe the very wet spring this year made it difficult to rear their colony successfully, Hopefully I’m wrong and she is just making a later appearance and will be foraging from now until October.

You will also continue to see workers of some of our commonest bumblebee flying this month including Buff-tailed bumblebees and their cuckoo the Vestal cuckoo bee; Tree bumblebees and Garden bumblebees. Red-tailed bumblebees are also foraging, but I’ve not seen one yet this year! Here’s a guide the six most common bumblebee cuckoos. 

How to ID July solitary bees:

  • Large sharp-tail bee (Coelioxys conoidea) is a very distinctive bee with its very pointed wasp-like abdomen and black and white colouring. The best way to spot them is around bee hotels as they are cuckoo bees of leafcutter bees who may be nesting there. They use the pointed abdomen to make a slit in the partition of the host’s cell and place their egg inside. Their larvae have long curved jaws to kill the host’s egg or its larvae. Then they gobble up all the pollen in the host’s nest and develop into adult bees to emerge next summer. Don’t try and kill them to protect the host. This is nature and the appearance of a cuckoo bee is a sign of a healthy host population. They can also take over summer flower bee nests. TOP TIP FOR CUCKOO BEES: They never collect pollen.
  • The Four-banded flower bee (Anthophora quadrimaculata) is much smaller than the earlier flying Hairy-footed flower bee. They display the same darting movement and high pitched buzz, but being just 7-8mm are much more difficult to spot as they zip around. The males have big, green eyes – like the similar-sized Green-eyed flower bee (Anthophora bimaculata) – and they both noisily patrol patches of flowers and are polylectic – feeding on many garden flowers including catmints and lavender, and wild flowers like Black Horehound and dead-nettles. Both species seem to be confined to the South of England.
  • Patchwork leafcutter bee (Megachile centuncularis) is one of our most common leafcutter bees. They get their name, like many solitary bees, from how they construct their nests. The leafcutters cut pieces of leaf from plants, including roses and lilac, to line their nests. A bit smaller than a honeybee, leafcutters are brownish grey and the easiest way to identify them is that they collect pollen on the underside of their tummy in orange-coloured pollen brushes. As they have a habit of lifting up their abdomen in the air while feeding on flowers, this orange underside is clearly visible. They will nest in bee hotels alongside red mason bees, plugging the entrance of the tubes with leaf. Look out for a female flying with a piece of leaf as big as herself clasped between her legs. Like this fantastic footage captured by Devon-based field naturalist, John Walter.
  • The Wool carder bee (Anthidium manicatum) is easy to see with its yellow spots along the side of its chunky body. if you have a patch of Lamb’s Ear (Stachys byzantina), you may have seen the females visiting already to collect the soft downy material from the underside of the leaves to line their nests. They roll the hairs into a ball as big as themselves to carry home to their nest in a ready-made cavity (maybe your bee hotel). Here she makes a hole in the middle of the ball, where she places the pollen and lays her egg on top. Unusually for bees, the males are larger. They aggressively defend their patch of purple flowers by attacking intruders in mid-air, armed with spikes under their abdomen. I’ve also seen females using their long tongues to feed on foxgloves in my garden and Black horehound along the canal.
  • NOTE: Carder means to ‘tease out fibres’. Despite having a similar English name to the social bumblebee called a Common carder bee (Bombus pascuorum), a Wool Carder Bee is not a bumblebee, it is a solitary bee nesting alone.
  • Common yellow-faced bee (Hylaeus communis) is one of a dozen small, (5mm) bees which are predominately black, but this species has yellow spots (the females), or triangles like a yellow mask (the males) on their face. The common variety is the one you are most likely to see in your garden because it’s not fussy about where it nests – in a variety of small cavities including manmade bee hotels if the dimensions of the tube are small enough – and it feeds on many widespread flowers. Unusually for a bee, it carries pollen back to its nest in a special stomach, called a crop, rather than on its body. If you have an observation bee box, with removal panels – so you can see what is happening in the cells the bees are creating – you will see this bee creating a waterproof cellophane-like ‘plastic bag’ around each egg and filling the bag with nectar and pollen.
  • Small scissor bee (Chelostoma campanularum) is the smallest bee in Britain. Measuring around 4.5mm, they can easily be mistaken for a tiny, black fly or ant by the lay person, or a black furrow bee. The clue to which bee you are looking at is in their Latin name – campanula is the Latin for bellflowers or harebells. They frequent these flowers, and males can be found sheltering in the middle during dull weather and/or at night. Another cavity nester, they use tiny pre-existing holes in dead wood including fence posts and plug the holes with small particles like sand grains and pebbles.  Like many solitary bees, they often nest next door to each other. ID tip: Another bee you may find sleeping in your bellflowers is the slightly bigger, browner and fluffier, Gold-tailed Melitta bee (Melitta haemorrhoidalis).

Bee mimics: There are some interesting flying insects this month trying to look like bees to deter predators, and confusing some of us bee spotters. But look out for the giveaway signs – big eyes, spindly legs and the lack of pollen on their back legs, or under their abdomen.

  • Narcissus fly (Merodon equestris) – these fluffy hoverflies could easily be mistaken for a Common carder bee, expect for the big eyes, spindly legs and lack of pollen. It gets it name because it lays its eggs on daffodil bulbs. The larvae feed on the bulb during winter and in spring pupate in to the soil emerging in the spring. But they are still around.
  • Bee wolf (Philanthus triangulum) – this is a large, solitary wasp that nests in sandy soil and preys on honeybees, paralysing them with a sting and carrying them back to their burrow. Up to six paralysed honey bees are placed in each brood chamber, then a single egg is laid on one of the bees and the chamber is sealed with sand. After hatching, the larva feeds on the cache of honey bees before spinning a cocoon to hibernate through winter, ready to emerge in spring.

How to help bees in July:

  1. Plant different flowers for different bees.  Lots of bee-friendly flowers are blooming this month including salvias, knapweeds (Centaurea nigra)  and lavenders. However some lavenders are better than others for attracting bees. Lavadula x intermedia ‘Gros Bleu’ performed best in trials at Sussex University, whereas Lavendula angustifolia is less attractive. Lavenders are good for short-tongued bees, as are herbs including Marjoram (Origanum), Anise hyssop, thyme and borage. For long-tongued bees plant Bergamot, (bee balm), Viper’s bugloss, Lamb’s Ear, salvias and shrubs like buddleia, also loved by butterflies, hence it’s common name, the butterfly bush. Many of these plants grow well in pots and planters on a sheltered patio or roof terrace in well-drained soil and they are fairly drought-tolerant. This month, I’ve already seen tiny Yellow-faced bees (Hylaeus) foraging on Fennell and Hebes, and lots of bee species on flowering thyme.
  2. If you only have a window box, Scabious japonica, dwarf harebells (campanula carpatica), dwarf lavenders, Mexican fleabane (Erigeron karvinskianus) and creeping thyme (Thymus serpyllum) will look good now and feed the bees if you keep watering regularly. You could also add some trailing nasturtium and Bird’s-foot trefoil.
  3. Continue to let part of the the lawn grow long (after No Mow May) for dandelions and clovers.
  4. Ditch the weed killers and pesticides. That includes spraying your roses – remember the leafcutter bees collect pieces of leaf to make their nests.
  5. It’s your last chance to put up bee hotels for leafcutter bees. We have created flat-pack bee hotels that can be easily assembled and come with instructions about where to put them and how to attract bees to nest in them by planting their favourite flowers. If you want to see what is happening inside a bee hotel, you could invest in an observation box with a Perspex viewing window such as this one from Bee Equipment that we have just installed on a few sites. But remember, unless you have the forage they need to feed their young nearby, they won’t nest in them.
  6. Drill holes in blocks of wood – 10mm, 8mm, 6mm and 4mm diameters and up to 30 cm deep – and screw them to a sturdy support. Drill holes in existing structures such as fence posts, or dead trees. See if small scissor bees or yellow-faced bees take up residence.
  7. Create a sand bank against a south facing wall for mining bees that like to burrow into sand. The sand has to hold together, so try mixing builders sand with some clay soil or loam.
  8. Provide a source of water for thirsty honeybees. This can be a shallow bowl or saucer with stones or pebbles in that the bees can stand on while they are drinking. Bees can’t swim!
  9. Buy a Field Guide to the Bees of Great Britain and Ireland if you are serious about IDing lots more bees.
  10. Start growing seeds, such as forget-me-nots, that will flowe