Despite being labelled as solitary, these bees will often nest communally or in large aggregations. The term solitary refers to the fact that the bees live as individuals and have no workers. You could be deceived into thinking that a group of solitary mining bees was actually a colony of honeybees. This is because the group will often share a single entrance hole, like a honeybee hive, but under the ground they each make and provision their own nest cells.
