“That’s not a honeybee!”, said Kourosh. He was right! There were plenty of honeybees in the winter flowering heather but he was not one of them. Yesterday morning (16 February 2021) was warm and sunny and the cute little bee was not a honeybee. I thought he looked like a male bee because he had elegant long antenna and the furry face looked like some of the solitary male bees I have seen.
As I watched him another, slightly larger bee, alighted on some nearby heather flowers and he immediately leapt on top of her. Well, that settled the question rapidly.
You would think I would know what type of bees they are but these photographs are not good enough to identify them. There are just under 1,000 species of bees in France (20,000 species in the world).
However, it was a very special moment and it brought home to me that spring is coming. Everything is on the move and it is worth keeping your eyes wide open.
If anyone is interested I have more photographs in Bees in a French Garden.
a french garden 
Hello Amelia, well spotted both, and photographed, even if you can’t put a name to it, and wonderful that you’re getting signs of spring proper over there. How amazing that some solitary bees are mating already,
best wishes
Julian
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Despite the fact that we are just coming out of a cold spell with little sun it has not kept the plants or the bees back. Amelia
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Could it be some kind of bumblebee?
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No, definitely not. It is possibly an Andrena. There are many mining bees and that is my best guess at the moment. Amelia
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We are all so looking forward to spring any sign of it is especially welcome this year.
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Amelia, Bees in a French garden keep coming back to this page.
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Thanks for that Brian. I posted that late at night, forgot to post the other one, and I put the wrong link into the insert. I’ve corrected that now. Sorry but so glad you told me. Amelia
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Spring, still but a glimmer in my eye. But your bees make me laugh and help pass the time, while we wait.
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I think the confinement and closure/cessation of our normal winter activities has made me concentrate even more on the arrival of spring. I am looking at spring as the beginning of a release from constraints. Whether this will be the case or not… Amelia
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Well, whether or not the pandemic eases, spring offers more access to the outdoors, and satisfying activities to do there. That’s a release.
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Here in Switzerland the snow has just melted, and I still have my gloves in my coat pocket – but this week it will be 16C and sunny every day. In a few days my mind has gone from ‘when will this winter end’ to ‘I’d better get back to France quickly before it’s too late to prune the roses’! I’m getting that early Spring feeling that soon things will move too fast to keep up – maybe it’s lockdown, or the brain needs to warm up after hibernation, or just age…
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I think it is the natural spring feeling. It does not take many warm spring days in the garden before you can throw off the cobwebs of winter. I have just been trawling through the net to look at summer flowers. I feel that our garden is more oriented towards spring and autumn flowers and I wondered if I could balance it. In fact, a lot of summer flowers are not my favourites. I hope you will soon be able to take a trip to your new garden. Amelia
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You will be welcome.
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They are Colletes, may be succinctus which is specialised on Heather.
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Thank you so much! It is so kind of you! I did not get any good wing shots to have a better idea. I follow your photographs on Flikr so sometimes I can recognise the bees and other insects as I know what to look for at the correct time. Amelia
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