Could This Be A Killer Bee?

[rosyposy]

It was hovering very jerkily, sort of up and down on the Valerian flowers, it had a black body with white patches. and pale orange wings, couldn't get a photo I'm afraid. Has anyone noticed them around?

[Purple_Popple]

Hover fly?

[rosyposy]

Hope it was Purple-Pople but it was the size of an ordinary bee, I thought hover flies were quite small but not sure. Thank you for replying

[Chipchopper]

Yes, it sounds like it could well be a hover fly, or possibly a 'bee fly'

[Tilly2]

Do we have killer bees in this country?

[heathfield]

See if you recognise it here...

http://www.gardensafari.net/english/hoverflies.htm

[rosyposy]

There is one similar on your link heathfied, but I googled 'killer bees -images' and the one nearest to the one I saw was the africanized honey bee. When I try to send a link it never works for me so sorry can't post it. It may have been a hover fly but they seem to have stripes rather than smudgy patches which mine had. I hope I don't see another one anyway, thank you all for replying.

[plowter]

No such thing as a 'killer bee'. There was a big panic in the seventies/eighties about aggresive africanised honey bees in America.

The common british bees tend to have dark-veined wings.
Yours could be a carpenter bee or one of the british bee moths.

[rosyposy]

O.K.I'll settle for that then plowter, thank you :o)