A miserable mining bee being carted away by a Jumping Spider. Their abdomens are blackish brown and smooth and encircled with bands of pale hairs. Blueberries are cultivated at Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture in a long swatch bordering the center’s vegetable gardens. Like mules bred from donkeys and horses, the Andrenas'  offspring are infertile. Female Andrena erigeniae have distinctive narrow facial foveae (hair-covered grooves that rim the inner edges of the bee's compound eyes, which look a little like sideways eyebrows). This is a female Alleghany mining bee. Andrena (mining bees) Britain's largest bee genus with 68 species recorded from the British Isles and a further one (A. agilissima) from the Channel Islands. These mining bees belong to the Andrena subgenus Melandrena. Females also have black eyes and antennae, with just a few rust-colored tufts of hair above the antennae. Identification Information:  Female Carlin's mining bees are robust and hefty, with black bodies, pale brown thoraxes (with black hair underneath) and legs trimmed with furry-looking black hair. Males tend to be slightly smaller, around 1/3",  as shown in the photo strip at right. The Andrena subgenus Leucandrena is represented by only two species in our area – the trout-lily mining bee (A. erythronii) and the long-lipped mining bee (A. barbilabris), shown here. live as far north as Nova Scotia and as far south as Zacatecas, Mexico, and  are found, in both the western and eastern United States. Female Wilkes Andrenas build solitary nests but are sometimes found in enormous aggregations. … (order Hymenoptera), particularly the genus Andrena. Females are generally simpler to distinguish than males, with the colour of the thorax and scopae important id characteristics. Note that the male bee's legs are long, slender, hairy and unburdened with pollen. They also possess characteristics exactly intermediate between the two species. These hairs are aptly described as looking like a “fox-fur coat”. Entomologist Charles D. Michener recorded two species in this subgenus, noting that Scapteropsis mining bees live throughout North America, from Alberta, Canada to Baja California, Mexico. Female Andrena bradleyi bees have unusally long faces and roman noses. Female Cresson’s mining bees are less distinctive and more difficult to identify with the naked eye. Andrena erigeniae The hawthorn mining bee is, in addition, a key pollinator of apples, pears, cherries, blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries. Stone Barns has made a singular effort to plant several goldenrod species in and around garden areas, and thus these bees are particularly plentiful there. Andrena Wilkella Identification Information:  Andrena placata and A. simplex males and females are predominantly black bees with dark thoraxes that are bald on top and fringed with pale hairs on the sides; and dark abdomens encircled by weakly-defined pale bands of hair. A male cloudy-winged mining bee: this Andrena species has a dark, slender abdomen striped with well-defined white bands. This bee appears in the park in mid-May and disappears by the end of June. Conandrena, Holandrena, Larandrena, Leucandrena, Melandrena, Plastandrena, Ptilandrena, Scrapteropsis, Simandrena, Taeniandrena, Trachandrena, Alleghany Mining Bee (A. alleghaniensis) Nevertheless, Wilkes Andrenas are also common visitors to Stone Barns' herb gardens, where they favor flowering thyme. The easiest way to distinguish  male Colletes thoracicus bees from long-lipped mining bee females is to determine the bees' gender:  all male bees have 7 abdominal segments and 13 segments on each antenna; females have 6 abdominal segments and 12 segments on each antenna. Hairy- banded mining bees also feed on a handful of other late-blooming wildflowers, among them, wild asters, groundsel, daisies and common melilot. These bees have orange hairs on their "shoulders," that is, on the front outer edges of their thoraxes. They are pollinators of a wide range of native spring-flowering trees and shrubs. Plum Andrenas are woodland bees. The genus Andrena is large, containing about 1300 species, many of which occur here in North America. If you see an Andrena alighting on spring beauty but carrying bright yellow pollen balls, this may be a sign that it is a different generalist species – not Andrena erigeniae -- that is just visiting the spring bulb after gathering pollen from a different flower. Alleghany mining bees are generalist pollinators that visit woodland trees and shrubs including willow, New Jersey tea, holly and viburnum. Andrena dunningi The bees hide their nests under light leaf litter, to protect themselves from moisture and predators. "Portland's Sabin schoolyard abuzz": Oregonlive 05/03/2010, "Tickle Bee Time! According to Schrader and LaBerge, female bees do not surface on spring days when the temperature drops below 55 degrees. The thorax of the hawthorn mining bee is pitted, while that of the confederate mining bee looks matte and unpitted except on microscopic inspection. The bees, however, are also found in warmer states in both the western and eastern U.S.  As noted below,  Andrena milwaukeensis varies in appearance according to location. This bee enters the Andrenas’ nests and deposits its eggs there. The thorax hairs right behind the wings and underneath the bee are black, a trait that helps distinguish Andrena carlini females from females of similar Andrena species. In addition, the bees do not behave like many of the Andrenas shown on this page, which emerge suddenly in the park in fairly large groups; you’ll often find a number of Andrenas of a particular species feeding on a particular plant. Female bees have a large brush of yellow scopal hair on each  back leg and broad pale facial foveae (“sideways eyebrows”) visible even to the casual observer. The bees have a slender, graceful build and less bulky appearance than any of the Andrena (Melandrena) shown above. The male Cresson’s Andrena is easy to identify, because of the striking yellow mask on its face. This is a female Nason's Andrena. Andrena milwaukeensis is very similar in appearance to the European species shown as A. fulva. These bees are commonly found in the park foraging on woodland bulbs such as dogtooth violets, lily-of-the-valley, bloodroot and claytonia. The miserable mining bee is the sole North American member of its subgenus, Spring beauty flowers emerge in our area between mid-April and early May, during the same period in which cherry and dogwood trees begin to bloom. The nests are usually carefully hidden under leaf-litter. Many female Andrena (Melandrena) have dark abdomens and thoraxes covered with short brownish hair. Andrena placata have been shown to be adaptive to city environments as well as the woodland environment of the park:  a 2009 study of bees in East Harlem and the Bronx documented Andrena placata living in urban gardens. Andrena placata and simplex are late-summer bees that emerge in August in our area in tandem with the bloom period of end-of-summer flowers. Each of us can create habitat to support local bee populations. The hair on the top of the bee's thorax is unusually sparse; where present, it is rust-orange to pale yellowish. This site uses cookies from Google to deliver its services and to analyze traffic. Mining Bees Insect Facts: All photos (c) 2014 - 2017 Sharp-Eatman Nature Photography. Honey bees have 170 odorant receptors, compared with only 62 in fruit flies and 79 in mosquitoes. The female bee's tunic of fox-colored hair extends down two segments of her abdomen. They too have bright fox-colored hair on their thoraxes, but have less reddish hair on their abdomens than do females. These bees also feed on wildflowers such as buttercups, golden ragwort, melilot and ox-eye daisies. Many populations are declining due to habitat loss, disease and pesticide poisoning. Like other Andrenas shown on this page, Milwaukee mining bees nest in the ground. Forbes' Mining Bee (A. forbesii), Hairy-banded Mining Bee (A. hirticincta) Andrena vicina They have black heads; black abdomens banded by interrupted rings of pale hairs on the second, third and fourth abdominal segments; and legs covered with long pale hairs. The bees’ legs are dark, sometimes with brick-red spurs, and their abdominal segments are reddish along the base. He noted that females can be distinguished from similar Trachandrena females by two minute traits:  (1) dense puncture marks on the top of the second segment of their abdomens; and (2) the relatively straight spurs on their hind legs. (T-5 and T-6 may have brown hairs.) Male plum Andrenas also have a trait that aids greatly in their identification - a large tuft of very long, feathery hairs hanging from the sixth segment of their abdomens. They then overwinter as adults. Blueberry pollen is white, and in April, female Bradley's mining bees caught in the activity of gathering blueberry pollen often appear smeared from head to tail with white dust – as shown in the photo strip at right, the bees carry large amounts of pollen on their hind legs, and the pollen tends to stick to their thorax hairs and even their undersides. Cresson's mining bees have bands of pale hairs on the second, third and fourth segments of their abdomens. Generalist bees such as the common eastern bumble bee are condemned to forage along trail edges through slim pickings, usually low-lying toadflax and other tough weeds, a sharp contrast to the wealth of blooms on which pollinators feed during mid-July in the park. Andrena erigeniae build solitary nests, but are considered “gregarious,” because they tend to group their nests nearby one another. Female Andrena melandrena are more distinctive and easier to tell from one another. Long black scopal hairs cover the hind legs of female Carlin's mining bees. Dunning's mining bee and the confederate mining bee. All photos are © 2014-2017 Paula Sharp & Ross Eatman, all rights reserved. Andrena miserabilis is known as the "miserable mining bee" for no readily explained reason – the mystery of this bee’s name remains deeply buried in the catacombs of bee-naming history. Carlin’s mining bees are considered important pollinators of blueberries. Like Andrena miserabilis, jumping spiders emerge in the park in mid-March and, in our experience, seem to materialize wherever the small bees are feeding. A male Cresson's mining bee of the subspecies Andrena cressonii cressonii. They are medium-sized bees, around 1/3 to 2/5 inches long, with dark bodies and abdomens. The hairy-banded mining bee is a specialist pollinator that feeds principally on goldenrod. Plum Andrenas are also pollinators of the spring-flowering woodland plants known as spring beauty, bloodroot, Jacob’s ladder and bellwort. (1)  An Andrena nasonii's abdominal segments fit into one other like sculpted plates. Generally, viewed with the naked eye, Nason's mining bees have dark heads and bodies covered with fine pale hairs. A tell-tale trait of Andrena carlini males (viewable only with a macro lens or other magnifier) is that they have dark hairs lining the inside edges of the orbits of their compound eyes. Development: Complete metamorphosis Andrena mining bees belong to Andrenidae, one of the six principal families of bees found in the United States. They tend to commingle in Northeastern blueberry plantings with the very similar blueberry-pollinatiing species, These bees can be challenging to find. Because the bees are such determined and dynamic flyers, however, it is difficult to follow them to their nests and discover where they lie buried. Thereafter, other Andrena species appear that specialize in summer and fall wildflowers. A fourth example of an Andrena  within the subgenus Melandrena is Dunning's Mining Bee.

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