Andrena cineraria, the ashy mining bee, female.
Vera Buhl, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The ashy mining bee is one of the most striking and most easily identified solitary bees in Britain. The female is jet black with two broad bands of ash-grey hair across the thorax, giving her a bold monochrome appearance unlike any other common spring bee. She is a ground-nester, excavating a burrow in lawns, paths and south-facing banks from late March, and she arrives at exactly the same time as the first spring blossom. Common and apparently increasing across England and Wales, Andrena cineraria Linnaeus, 1758 is a bee that rewards attention: once you know it, you will spot it every spring. See where it lives alongside Britain's other wild bees on the UK Native Bee Species Map, or read about its close relatives in the World Bee Atlas.

Taxonomy and Classification

The ashy mining bee was described by Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of Systema Naturae. It belongs to the family Andrenidae and the large genus Andrena, sitting within the subgenus Melandrena, a grouping of mostly black species with grey or white hair bands.^[1] The species name cineraria comes from the Latin cinis, meaning ash or ashes, a direct reference to the ash-grey thorax bands that define the female. It is one of two very similar black-and-grey Andrena in Britain; the other, the much rarer grey-backed mining bee (Andrena vaga), has grey covering the entire thorax and is a recent colonist confined to a few south-eastern sites.

Identification

The female ashy mining bee is one of the most instantly recognisable solitary bees in Britain. She is black, with a bluish-black shiny abdomen, and her thorax carries two broad, clearly defined bands of ash-grey hair: one across the front of the thorax (the pronotum and mesoscutum) and one across the rear (the propodeum). The contrast between the grey bands and the black body is sharp and striking. She is roughly honeybee-sized at 13 to 15 mm, with noticeably thicker hind legs than the male, used for carrying pollen.^[1]

The male is smaller at 10 to 12 mm, entirely black, with the entire top of the thorax covered in grey hair (rather than two distinct bands), white hairs forming a conspicuous tuft on the lower face, and white hairs on the sides of the abdomen and the base of the abdominal segments.^[2] Males emerge a week or two before females in late March and are often seen patrolling potential nesting areas. The genus Andrena is identified by the broad velvety facial foveae (strips of dense hair between the compound eyes and the antennal bases), which are absent in other bee genera.

Nesting: Burrows, Aggregations and a Closed Door

The ashy mining bee nests in the ground, favouring bare or sparsely vegetated soil: lawns, footpaths, south-facing clay banks, sheep-grazed slopes, brownfield sites and coastal grassland.^[1] Each female excavates her own vertical burrow, typically 10 to 20 cm deep, with two or three brood cells branching off the main shaft. She provisions each cell with a pollen-and-nectar loaf, lays a single egg, seals the cell, and the larva develops entirely without further care. Adults overwinter inside the natal cells and emerge the following spring.^[3]

Aggregations can be dense: nest densities of up to 11 nests per square metre have been recorded at prime sites. Where conditions are right, hundreds or thousands of females may choose the same slope or path edge, creating highly visible concentrations that attract attention in April. Despite the appearance of a colony, each female is entirely independent and shares nothing with her neighbours.

Life Cycle and Foraging

The ashy mining bee is univoltine with one generation per year. Males emerge from late March, females from early April, and both sexes are active through to mid-June, peaking in April and May.^[1] After mating the male dies; the female builds and provisions nests through spring. Flight season timing matches closely with the flowering of spring blossom, and the species is an important early-season pollinator of fruit trees as well as wildflowers.

Andrena cineraria is polylectic, collecting pollen from a broad range of spring-flowering plants. Recorded foraging plants include willows, blackthorn, wild cherry, plum, pear, apple, dandelion, buttercup, cow parsley, gorse, hawthorn, hogweed, thrift, daisies, bramble and various brassicas.^[1] The species has also been observed in recent years foraging on ivy flowers in September and October, possibly an extension of activity associated with warming autumns, though this behaviour is not yet well documented.

Distribution and Status

The ashy mining bee is widespread and common across lowland England and Wales, with records extending into southern Scotland. BWARS notes that it appears to be increasing in both range and abundance, particularly in southern England, where it has been recorded in new areas since the late twentieth century.^[1] It also occurs in Ireland and the Channel Islands. Across Europe its range extends from Fennoscandia south to Iberia and east through central Asia to northern China and Mongolia, making it one of the most widely distributed members of the genus.^[5]

The species is not subject to any conservation concern and is listed as Least Concern. It is one of a small number of British solitary bees showing positive trends, possibly benefiting from the expansion of gardens, brownfield land and informal green spaces which offer both foraging plants and suitable nesting substrate. See its full regional distribution across Britain's 17 recording zones on the UK Native Bee Species Map.

Natural Enemies: Lathbury's Nomad Bee

The primary cleptoparasite of the ashy mining bee is Lathbury's nomad bee (Nomada lathburiana), a wasp-like bee that enters unguarded burrows while the host is foraging and lays eggs in the provisioned brood cells. The nomad larva destroys the host egg and consumes the pollen loaf.^[1] The species is also parasitised by Gooden's nomad bee (Nomada goodeniana) at some sites. Nomad bees are an entirely natural feature of the ecosystem and their presence is a direct indicator of a thriving host population: where you find large ashy mining bee aggregations, the nomad bees will not be far away.

April Bees, April Honey

The ashy mining bee and the acacia tree share a season. The bee is at its peak in April and May; the black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia) flowers in the Transylvanian forests in late May and early June, at exactly the moment our honeybee colonies are at full spring strength and foraging hard. The ashy mining bee does not produce honey. But the parallel is worth noting: both are precision spring foragers, tuned to a narrow window of blossom, gathering what they need from that brief abundance.

Our Acacia Honey is harvested from those same Transylvanian forests, where the Nistor family has kept bees for six generations. It is pale, mild and slow to crystallise, with a high fructose content that keeps it runny far longer than most honeys. It is the honey from the spring harvest, the one that rewards patience and a single-origin approach. 280g, raw and cold-extracted.

Transylvania • Spring harvest

Acacia Honey | £10.99

Pale, mild and slow to crystallise. Raw Transylvanian acacia honey, cold-extracted from our family apiaries in the Nistor forests. 280g.

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