Pollen Diet of Two Andrena Species.xlsx

This dataset contains details of pollen records of two species of Andrena bees, from the same sites almost 80 years apart. Spreadsheet A_flavipes contains data on pollen load composition for <i>Andrena flavipes</i>; Spreadsheet A_barbilabris contains pollen load composition data for <i>Andrena barbilabris</i>. The remaining sheets summarise the same data grouped by plant family. In 2021, sites visited during the 1940s were revisited and pollen was collected from ground-nesting bees as they returned to their nests. The species studied were <i>Andrena flavipes</i>, nesting at Tingrith Bedfordshire, UK; and <i>Andrena barbilabris</i> nesting at Aspley Heath, Bedfordshire. The historic pollen data was collated from the notebooks of Vic Chambers, a local entomologist. In both periods, pollen samples were processed, and slides prepared, by staining with basic fuchsin and mounting in glycerin jelly. Using light microscopy, slides were examined at x400, by taking a zigzag course through the slide to review and identify up to 1000 grains of pollen per slide. Where fewer than 1000 grains were counted, the numbers of grains for all the taxa in each sample were transformed to a proportion of 1000 grains.