Andrena labiata Red-Girdled Mining Bee

In my post about Andrena rosae of 18th April I mentioned another confusion species, Andrena labiata, which might not occur on Gower.................... There are several squares with records on NBN gateway. Next day I found one and also remember putting one on here many years ago as a Sphecodes and being corrected by some kind person. I have never looked again at the picture of this bee, from Parkmill, to check. I found this species at Bovehill reserve on north-west Gower and because it was a male it had a white face as you can see:

It is about half the size of rosae and has a different colour and pattern of red:

The face of rosae looks like this, without white and with much longer mandibles:

Can't do much in this arctic cold so here's hoping it warms up again next week when I will continue. At least I can catch up with some jobs including this posting.