North Lincs Colletes bee fest - Ivy Mining-Bee, Sea Aster Mining Bee and Heather Mining Bee

 What a weekend! Set out to find three species of solitary bee in N Lincs two of which I don't believe have been recorded before and amazingly I succeeded with all three - so firstly we have the very beautiful Colletes Hederae aka Ivy Mining-bee and as the name suggests it feeds on ivy - to cut a long story short I found this species in the churchyard at Whitton and I would ask if anyone has any contacts with the Whitton parish council/church could you please put a plea in for the Ivy not to be cut down!

I thought if I could find Ivy Bee why not Sea Aster Mining-Bee - I knew they were at Donna Nook and Spurn but we are further north latitudinally so how good would it be to find them in my local area and possibly record them at their most Northerly distribution.  So set about thinking where we had local swathes of Sea Aster - I knew it was at Alkborough but it has been declining rapidly with the reeds growing year on year so decided on Winteringham which has vast swathes little did I realise that you can't get anywhere near it! So having walked about a mile along the flood bank turned back disappointed only to suddenly catch a glimpse of a small bee shoot up from a dandelion flower on the bank and that was the start of a session photographing one possibly two individual of the smaller just as striking Sea Aster Mining Bee

On a roll now and its only mid-day so decided to go for the hat-trick and try and add Heather Mining Bee - in my mind only one place for heather in N Lincs and that's Scotton Common - we were lucky only two individuals found!

I wouldn't stand a chance of seeing or identifying any bees without the brilliant Field Guide to the Bees of Great Britain and Ireland by Steven Falk and illustrated by Richard Lewington -can't recommend it enough.