Red Tailed bee – Bombus lapidarius female.

I spent just a short while with my camera  at my caravan hide area yesterday.  I attached my macro lens to photograph some of the bees and other insects from the area.  Ragwort, a controversial plant that is poisonous to livestock when dry, is abundant and in flower at the moment, providing pollen and nectar to all kinds of insects.  It's a shame that it obviously can't be tolerated because they do provide quite a source of food for bees and they need as much help as possible.  I dont find bees that easy to identify but I can usually arrive at an answer with a bit of hard work.  The first bees below are probably the easiest to identify but then you come up against a Red tailed bee with a yellow tail, you are bound to be confused by that if you are an interested but quite casual observer like myself.  There are only 6 or so common species of bumble bee in the UK, it should therefore be a relatively simple matter to name them, trust me….. it rarely is easy!

Bombus lapidarius male.  Males have a yellow face and a yellow band.

Red Tailed bee – Bombus lapidarius  bleached by the sun. 

Red Tailed bee – Bombus lapidarius  (bleached by the sun).

Lasioglossum calceatum (Slender Mining bee)

This is an update:  It turns out that the bee above and below is a Slender Mining Bee- Lasioglossum calceatum, apparently one of the most common mining bee species, oddly if that's the case, I wonder why I haven't seen one before?

Apparently they have striped legs which you can just about see, this is a way of identifying this species……oh and it's a male!