Hi Chris,

Very exciting news - at the weekend Rob Mills took photos of a bee-fly that was lurking on his bee hotel: it is Anthrax anthrax (Schrank, 1781), a bee-fly that has not previously been confirmed from Britain (it is included in Stubbs and Drake but only on the basis of two specimens that are labelled as being from Leicestershire in 1929 and 1930, from a collection that is known to have included incorrectly labelled specimens).  Rob's sighting was from his garden near Ely in Cambridgeshire.

Full details will be published in Dipterists Digest in due course, but for now we can A) share Rob's excitement, and B) keep a close eye on bee hotels and other places where Osmia mason bees nest to see if there are more of the flies to be found.

Could this be added to the UKSI and beyond please Chris ?

Steve