Bees on the Beach

This continues a pilot project I was working on last year to monitor bees on the vegetated shingle on the Shoreham Beach Local Nature Reserve. The aim was to find out what bees were present and what plant species they pollinated.

This time of the year very few plants are flowering on the beach so I did not expect to find any (last year the pilot project started in May).

I managed to photograph these three. The first is a type of cuckoo bee of the species Nomada, possibly Nomada goodeniana because of the orangy coloured legs and antennae

 The yellow spots the the bee below suggests its a male.

I also saw a few of this bee, possibly Andrena Bicolor

The identity of the last one I am, not sure of. Its a very small bee (and a distance photograph) so not enough detail to be sure

The conditions were not ideal for bee watching especially photographing. It was quite blowy and the sun meant it was easy to cast a shadow and frighten the bee off while trying to get into a good position to photograph them. Because there are not many flowers on the beach yet, they did not stay in one place for long.