This month, hopefully you will see at least three new bumblebee species, three types of mining bee, the now familiar Hairy-footed flower bee, and two ‘cuckoo’ bees – the Mourning bee and the striking wasp-like Flavous nomad 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:

• The common carder bee (Bombus pascuorum) is one of my favourites. Despite the common name, which derives from the old word “to tease out fibres” – which she does from plants for nesting materials – she is a bumblebee (Bombus in Latin). I like her, partly because she is ubiquitous from spring to autumn on many garden flowers so you will definitely get to know her, and she is less flashy than other bumblebees with her small (10-13mm) , round body and gingery brown colouring.
• 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. Be prepared for noisy buzzing outside their new home as gangs of males compete to mate with virgin queens. Tree bumblebee colonies vacant at the end of the summer, so the bird box will be empty for the blue tit family next spring. I still find it hard to tell Common carder 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 later goes a bit bald), so the best way to tell them apart is to focus on getting a look at their bottom. The tree bumblebee has a tiny white bottom and a darker body (abdomen). Good luck!

• White-tailed bumblebee  (Bombus lucorum) ) looks very similar to our most common buff-tailed bumblebee workers, whose workers also have white tails.
• Top tip for telling a White-tailed bumblebee from a Buff-tailed bumblebee – The easiest way to tell these two 16mm species apart, is that the stripes on the Buff-tailed bumblebees are a dirty, gold colour while the White-tailed bumblebees’ stripes are more lemony yellow. If in doubt, it’s probably a Buff-tailed bumblebee as they are much more common, especially in urban areas.

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).
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:

• 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.
• The Mourning bee (Melecta albifrons) is a fluffy grey/black colour edged with lateral white spots . Despite their cute appearance, they 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 for her own babies.  A quarter of the 20,000 plus bee species on the planet are cuckoos. Their appearance means that the host bee is healthy.
• Ashy mining bees (Andrena cineraria) A smallish black and grey stripped bee (around 10mm), they nest 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)!

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

• Flavous nomad bee (Nomada flava) is one of 34 nomad bees in the UK. Nomad bees, as the name suggests, don’t have their own home. They wander around seeking out the home of a mining bee species that they can take over instead. This particular Nomad bee is a cleptoparasite of some pretty common mining bees including the Chocolate mining bee (Andrena scotia), Buffish mining bee (Andrena nigroaenea), Grey-patched mining bee (Andrena nitida) see below,  and Oak mining bee (Andrena ferox). What she does to her host bee isn’t nice. A female enters the host’s burrow and lays her eggs in any unsealed cells. The larvae that emerges eats the host’s eggs/larvae and helps itself to all the pollen and then uses the burrow to develop into an adult bee. These nomad bee are useful when trying to spot and identify their host mining bees because they are much easier to see with their garish, wasp-like markings. This one has some red markings in addition to the yellow and black. They are also an indicator of the health of the host.

• The short-fringed mining bee (Andrena dorsata) is widespread in southern England. Sporting a reddish-brown fluffy pile on her thorax, a smooth black body with thin stripes, and a 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 which are also around at this time of year.
• Grey-patched mining bee (Andrena nitida) is one of the commonest 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. They 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 Nomad bee and follow the Nomad to find the Grey-patched mining bees’ nest.

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 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 type of bee hotels with the cardboard tubes. You can take the cocoons out of in the winter and clean them.
6. Leave a patch of bare earth for mining bees to burrow and where red mason bees can collect soil to make partition walls between birthday chambers and to plug their nests.
7. Don’t mow the lawn to let dandelions and clovers grow. Small, brown mining bees are easiest to see on bright yellow dandelions. I know let dandelions grow in my herbaceous perennial flower borders to spot bees.
8. Ditch the weed killers and pesticides.

For information on IDing the early bumblebee (Bombus pratorum), the large buff-tailed bumblebee (Bombus terrestris), the foxy-coloured tawny mining bee (Andrena fulva), and the wasp-like Gooden’s nomad bee (Nomada goodenianna), go to the Bees to See in April blog here.

Honey bee (Apis mellifera) and bee-fly (Bombylius major) info is in the Bees to See in March blog here.

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