Hi Alibumble,

Yes… 2 Queens in the garden just the other day feeding on the chives.

But what I haven’t seen so far this year is the Common Carder, B Pascuorum, last year it was everywhere !
We live in Bradford Abbas, Dorset, and in general the bee numbers are very much down in our garden this year.

Peter

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Hi Peter, glad you have some red-tailed bees. We seemed to have a lot of common carder’s this year.

Yes numbers are certainly down.

Thanks for the photo and reply.

I’m in East Devon & have been visited by several red tailed bb’s, mostly queens. Had a fair few buff tailed queens too this year.

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So glad there are some about. Still no sign of any here in Swindon :-(

There have been a few queens around here this spring.  (South Bucks.)  I saw a queen last Sunday and a my first worker of the year a few days previously.

It has been a dreadful and late spring around here, and probably more widely. 
I suspect that with this species we are still in the quiescent period after nests have been established, but before (any/many) workers are about.

Three or four years ago there was a distinct lack of B. lapidarius in my area, but plenty in the Chalk Downland areas a few miles away.  But the following year it was abundant everywhere, so I suspect that we gained from Queen Dispersal flights bringing in queens from round and about that second spring.

Clive

Hooray!!! I have seen my first red-tailed bumble today!!!! Poor things, hatching out in gale force winds.