I stood on our tiny front lawn and watched as a tawny mining bee landed on a dandelion

I stood on our tiny front lawn and watched as a tawny mining bee landed on a dandelion. It was a female. Female tawny mining bees are about the size of honeybees and have a striking blaze of fox-red fur: hard to think of a finer colour combination than the little insect’s sizzlingly ginger pelt and the sunshine yellow of a dandelion. For a good five minutes, she tucked into the riches offered by the humble weed; then, back legs loaded with yellow pollen, she flew away. But she wasn’t going far. Helicoptering a couple of yards down the garden, she landed on a tiny pile of fine grained soil.

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