Mining bees - there are man species that coexist

I photographed both species of mining bee on the same plant at the same time of day.

Spring is my favourite time of year.  Not only because of the returning birds and the start of the nesting season, but also because it is a great time to find insects.  Winters in Canada are generally devoid of insect life, and the warmer temperatures and blooming flowers bring with them a great increase in arthropod activity.

As we were exploring the upper section of Mission Creek Park in Kelowna, I found a sunny spot with a current bush loaded with a variety of insects.  Most of them were either the black one (left) or the tawny one (right), both members of the genus Andrena.  I wrote a blog recently on the tawny mining bee, which you can see here.  The fact that there were so many and that they were active mid-April is not surprising given their nature.

I photographed both with my D500 Nikon camera and 500 mm PF telephoto lens.  I also used a 1.4x teleconverter, the combination giving me a relative focal length of 1050 mm.  Although my working distance is not great (about 2 meters), the magnification and image quality allowed me to get a lot of good photos.  I get better magnification with my macro equipment, but the results speak for themselves.

There are over 118 species of mining bees in the Kelowna area.  The tawny mining bee is relatively easy to identify with its bright orange-coloured dorsal thorax hair.  The black one has been more difficult to identify, and I have not been able to figure out exactly what species it is.

Thanks for reading.

Eric Svendsen     www.ericspix.com

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