Halictus scabiosae

It is about the size of a honey bee and is easily told apart by ring-like pale bands running around the segments of its abdomen.

Females carry a buff band at both the front and the back of abdominal segments 2 to 4.

First-brood females, which mostly act as workers, were significantly smaller and lighter and had lower fat reserves than second-brood females in a Swiss study.

This bee has a Western Palaearctic range, extending from the Netherlands south to Spain and Portugal.

In the British Isles it is found only in the Channel Islands, where it has long been known from Guernsey, Jersey and Sark.

It is a eusocial species: females that have survived the winter rear more than one generation in a single season.

Spring foundresses raise a first brood, mostly female, that emerges from the nests in June and July.

After mating, second-brood females enter a winter rest (diapause) and become the foundresses of the following spring.

Whether mothers deliberately shape their daughters into workers by giving the first brood smaller pollen provisions remains a hypothesis rather than a settled fact.

On the European mainland, where conditions suit it, this bee nests in large aggregations.

In a study in Friuli, north-east Italy, the plants most visited by females were sunflower and dandelion.

Unusually, several future queens often start a nest together rather than one female working alone.

Eventually the egg-laying female drives the workers out of the nest before the brood of new bees emerges.

The French national inventory INPN reports its European red-list category as Least Concern, meaning its risk of disappearing is considered low.