Picture the scene. I’m wandering around the garden in the one 30-minute period of sunshine all day when I spot a tiny bee or wasp munching on pollen, it’s mandible shooting out like something from an ‘Alien’ film. I have no idea what the wee beastie is, can’t even fathom out whether it’s a bee or wasp (it has a very ‘waspy’ waist but seems to be a little too hairy for a wasp), and am getting quietly excited because in this very flowerbed I accidentally found a rare nomada bee some years before. I take as many photos as I can, and even pick it up so it’s perching on my thumb (where it sits, very docile, and starts cleaning its antennae) and photograph it before putting it back. I upload a few images to the fantastic BWARS (Bees, Wasps, and Ants Recording Society) and wait for the responses to come flooding in, anxious bee twitchers emailing to ask me when they can pop over…
Only, as is statistically overwhelmingly likely to be the case, I’ve not found a rarity, but instead, says Matt of BWARS, probably Lassioglossum calceatum (rather than L. albipes). Yes, I’d finally noticed the UK’s commonest member of the Lasioglossum genus, a tiny bee but widespread and likely to be in YOUR garden right now too. Females are indistinguishable in the field, but males aren’t too difficult – and now that Matt has pointed me in the right direction I’m pretty confident this is indeed calceatum.
So, in the interests of fellow amateur panrecorders everywhere, here are a few images of what is a very common but rather likeable bee so that you can save your blushes and NOT ask the UK’s most distinguished panel of hymenopterists to identify the aculeate equivalent of a Blue Tit…
Male Lasioglossum calceatum
