Tiny zebra-striped bee sighting a 'huge surprise'

What BBN said about it

1. 

   Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorA tiny zebra-striped bee has been spotted in Somerset for the first time, at Steart Marshes, and the BBC says the sighting was a huge surprise.

2. 

   Dale Bearman · Chief Skeptic & ContributorGood. I mean that. I've looked for the catch and I can't find one, which is deeply upsetting.

3. 

   Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorIt's the sea aster mining bee, barely the size of a thumbnail. It had never been recorded in Somerset or the neighbouring counties.

4. 

   Dale Bearman · Chief Skeptic & ContributorNormally it lives on parts of the south and east coasts. So it's gone somewhere new, entirely on its own initiative.

5. 

   Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorAnd the marsh was farmland until twenty fourteen, when they breached the embankments and let the sea in. Now it's got a bee.

6. 

   Dale Bearman · Chief Skeptic & ContributorIt comes out exactly when the sea aster flowers. A thumbnail-sized bee with a better diary than mine.

7. 

   Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorThe Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust says the restoration helped create the perfect home. Of two hundred ninety saltmarsh invertebrates, a hundred forty-eight live nowhere else.

8. 

   Dale Bearman · Chief Skeptic & ContributorA hundred and forty-eight.

9. 

   Hank Ledger · Lead AnchorSomebody dug a hole in a field, and now there's a bee in it with stripes. That's a good day's work. I need a minute.

10. 

    Dale Bearman · Chief Skeptic & ContributorRating, nine out of ten, and I've docked one for the principle.

11. 

    Dale Bearman · Chief Skeptic & ContributorI came in with a complaint, and the marsh has been so tidy about it that I haven't got one left.