Today I’ve been cracking on with the refurbishment of the old summer house at the back of the garden that previous owners have let fall into rotten disrepair, whilst Karin attends a conference in London.  The renovation has been a slow job, due to lack of time, but a lot of fun, and a good excuse to play with power tools.  In between sawing and drilling, however, I’ve been keeping an eye out for bees and other flower visitors and was delighted to spot a new species for the garden – the Ashy Mining Bee (Andrena cineraria).  It’s a beautiful and distinctive insect that I know from other sites in Northampton, but had not recorded here previously.  The record has been submitted to the BWARS recording scheme for this species.

Do look out for this bee, it’s difficult to confuse it with anything else (which is rare in Andrena….)  Here’s a few photographs of a female collecting pollen from a cultivated rose, that I took with my phone: