Malcolm

In article <4ed295bb92rblackall@rodsrisc.demon.co.uk>, Rodney Blackall
<rblackall@rodsrisc.demon.co.uk> writes
>
>In Buckingham town centre there are some flats whose ground level
>windows open onto large "window troughs" filled with bare earth. Thursday
>morning this earth was pocked with fairly evenly spaced holes being
>excavated by lots of busy bees. They were uniformly dark and hairy like
>small bumble-bees but good at hovering.
>
>I can find nothing like them in my field guide to British insects; there is
>a description that seems to fit their behaviour but the plate that is
>supposed to show them does not. Any guesses (African mining bees driven out
>by Global Warming?!)
>
>Sometime soon they will be noticed and moves taken to eradicate them - which
>would be a shame if they are rare.
>
There are plenty of species of so-called(1) solitary bees in the UK,
several of which fit your description!

Have a look at the mining bees at:

http://www.bwars.com/Gallery.htm

(1) They're "solitary" in that each bee makes its own nest, but, as in
your case, they are actually colonial in that lots of them breed in the
same small area.

--
Malcolm