Andrena cineraria

It is a distinctive mining bee with a bluish-black body and ash-grey hairs on the thorax and the rear of the thorax (propodeum).

The female is black with two broad white hair bands, one across the front and one across the back of the thorax.

It is widely distributed across the Palaearctic, from Fennoscandia south to Iberia and east to northern China.

In Britain it is recorded from Cornwall to east Kent and north to Durham, and it seems to be increasing its range, at least in southern England.

There is usually one generation a year; in southern England males fly from March to May, mainly in April, and females from April to June.

The new adults spend the winter inside the cells in which they developed, emerging the following spring.

Rare records of males in July and August and females in August might represent a second brood, but this is not confirmed.

In orchards of the Kashmir valley it is described as one of the most distinctive spring-flying solitary bees, flying and foraging from April to July.

It favours open sunny places, usually on sandy ground such as open woodland, moorland, coasts, river banks and old quarries.

The nest burrow is dug 10 to 20 cm deep and holds two to three cells.

Nests are sometimes built in large, tightly packed aggregations in bare or thinly vegetated soil.

It visits a wide range of flowers, including brambles, cabbages and cherries.

The cuckoo bee Nomada lathburiana lays its eggs in the nests of this species and its larvae eat the stored food.

In Britain it is not regarded as scarce or threatened.