I have seen bumblebees robbing nectar from comfrey flowers before but as far as I remember I haven't seen this behaviour from solitary bees. Nectar robbing is when a bee takes nectar from the flower through a hole bitten in the side rather than entering normally and offering pollination, especially a bee with a tongue too short to reach the nectary. I suspect the holes were made by bumblebees and the others were just taking advantage. This is a Buff-tailed Bumblebee
and an Early Bumblebee.
A Common Carder Bee was doing it properly.
This was earlier in the week on the comfrey in the corner of the kitchen garden. The most numerous bees were male red mason bees.
They were also patrolling the flowers in the vain hope of finding a new female. In reality all the females are busy provisioning their nests and the males don't have long to live but that didn't stop them challenging and knocking each other off the flowers.
Female red masons were also robbing, obviously getting just nectar here and collecting their pollen elsewhere.
The most surprising to me was a nomad bee, a cuckoo that lays its eggs in solitary bees nests (usually mining bees).
It all goes to show that sometimes crime does pay. You can read more about the biology of nectar robbing here.
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