Excavator: Ground. The species nests semi-communally, its burrows being scattered over fields or grassy slopes and along hedgebanks. In Strathclyde, G.M. Spooner (pers. comm.) estimated a total of five hundred burrows along about a twenty-five meter stretch of roadside verge. It prefers to nest in some existing cavity, and may sometimes be seen exploring a rabbit or rat hole for the purpose (R.C.L. Perkins, 1919g). In Bedfordshire, Chambers (1949) found nests in roadside banks and ditches, the burrows often not directly facing the sun. The species will occasionally nest in the soft of walls (Hallett, 1928; Nicholls, 1992).
In Derbyshire, Archer (1979) found several females sharing a common entrance burrow. Excavation of one such hole revealed numerous portions of burrows and a minimum of forty-two cells. On another occasion he poured plaster of paris down an entrance burrow, and subsequent excavation revealed that the common entrance burrow divided into six main burrows; several minor burrows were also associated with this composite nest. Thirteen cells were found connected to the burrow system of this nest, but probably about six were missed. Similar communal nests have occasionally been discovered by Hallett (1928), Westrich (1989), S.R. Miles and C.R. Vardy (both pers. comm.). Such nest architecture is thus no doubt similar to that produced by the related Andrena bucephala and A. ferox. Michener (1974) called such a composite nest a communal colony and considered it might represent an early phase in social life among bees. C. O'Toole (pers. comm.) observed females of this species using the communal nest entrance of an existing aggregation of A. bucephala in Oxfordshire.