Hairy-Footed Flower Bee

Hairy-footed Flower Bee, Anthophora plumipes.   Male.  West Wickham Common, 3 April 2016.

SOme early bees are out and about, and the one with the best name is the Hairy-footed Flower Bee.  It's about the same size as a bumble-bee worker, but it's too early in the year for the workers to be flying, so if you think you see one it might be this.  This is the male, a furry bee of a light buff colour.  This photo shows off the hairy feet pretty well.

Hairy-footed Flower Bee, Anthophora plumipes.   Female.  West Wickham Common, 3 April 2016.

The female is much darker, but has a distinctive light tuft on its leg.

Both these bees are working through a patch of Red Dead-nettle, which is currently in full flower.   Other insects also come to these flowers; this one ..

Bombus terrestris, Buff-tailed Bumblebee.   Queen.  West Wickham Common, 3 April 2016.

is a bumble-bee.  It's a queen Buff-tailed Bumblebee, foraging to feed its first batch of larvae.  It is twice the length of the flower bees and could not be mistaken for one.

There are also some other mid-sized flyers around.  For example, bee-flies; as the name suggests, they are flies, not bees.  I didn't manage to photograph the one I saw on April 3rd, so here is a shot from 2014.

Beefly, Bombylius major.  Churchyard of the Church of St. Mary,  Kemsing, 12 April 2014.

It's the same size as the flower bees, and about the same colour as the male, but those stiffly held wings with the dark band are quite distinctive.