Printed

BEES 

1. Field Guide to the Bees of Great Britain and Ireland by Steven Falk and Richard Lewington (Bloomsbury 2015). The essential guide to all 25 British genera and all 275 species. Full account of each species with photo and distribution map. 20 pages of colour drawings of each species. Dichotomous keys to genera and families. Portable.
2. Pocket Guide to the Bumblebees of Great Britain and Ireland Richard Lewington (Bloomsbury Wildlife Guides 2023). Covers all 24 British bumblebee species, with accurate colour drawings of all of them. Two pages to a species, with several illustrations, distribution map and flight periods. A pair of pages for the seven most common species. Four pages of at-a-glance overview of all species. Essential.
3. Bumblebees: An introduction (Bumblebee Conservation Trust 2018)
4. What’s That Bumblebee …?  fold-out card (Bumblebee Conservation Trust 2018)
5. Bees of Britain O’Toole & Shields/ Buglife (FSC WildID Fold-out chart 2007)
6. Britain’s Insects: A field guide to the insects of Great Britain and Ireland by Paul D Brock (Princeton Wild Guides 2021) [538-569 covers a selection of bees]

WASPS

1. Britain’s Insects: A field guide to the insects of Great Britain and Ireland by Paul D Brock (Princeton Wild Guides 2021) [508-515 covers social wasps]
2. Insects of Britain and Western Europe by Michael Chinery (2007) [242-243 covers social wasps]
3. Identification of Social Wasps by George Else  British Wildlife Magazine 1994 (Vol 5, pp 304-311). 

ANTS

1. Britain’s Insects: A field guide to the insects of Great Britain and Ireland by Paul D Brock (Princeton Wild Guides 2021) [490-501 covers ants]
2. Ants by Gary J Skinner and Geoffrey W Allen (Naturalists’ Handbook 24) 2015
3. Ants of Surrey by John Pontin (Surrey Wildlife Trust 2005)

SAWFLIES & WOODWASPS 

1. Britain’s Insects: A field guide to the insects of Great Britain and Ireland by Paul D Brock (Princeton Wild Guides 2021) [467–470 covers sawflies & wood-wasps]
2. British Sawflies: A Key to the adults of genera occurring in Britain Adam Wright (Field Studies Council AIDGAP Guide 1990)

Websites

1. BWARS (Bees, Wasps & Ants Recording Society) is a British membership voluntary organisation that has useful resources on bees, wasps and ants on its website.
2. British Bees on Flickr website by Steven Falk is designed to complement the Field Guide to the Bees of Great Britain and Ireland (Falk & Lewington, 2015). It holds many photos of all species.
3. British Hymenoptera on Flickr website by Steven Falk covers wasps as well as bees and ants. It has numerous photos of the species.
4. Sawflies – a Beginner’s Guide Andrew Halstead  (Bedfordshire Natural History Society 2016) 
5. Google Lens: Go to google.com and there is a camera icon at the right of the search bar. Click on this, and you can drag and drop any image and it will do its best to identify it – so can be used for any flora and fauna, vertebrates and invertebrates etc. (as well as buildings, landscapes – anything, in fact.)  Worth a look, but treat identifications with caution!

Apps