It occurs in western Europe and is one of the most frequently encountered mining bees found in Great Britain, where it had been previously misidentified as Andrena carantonica.

They possess very small pollen baskets or flocci on their hind legs and the long, pale scopae are dark on distally and curly proximally.

[5] Andrena scotica is endemic to Europe where it is found in Ireland east to Poland and the Czech Republic, south to Italy and north to southern Scandinavia[6][7] and Finland.

[8] Andrena scotica occurs in a wide variety of habitats, especially where there are firm sandy soils in open situations such as in the vicinity of footpaths.

The females are facultative communal nesters with a group of them sharing a common entrance to a burrow in which each female tends her own eggs and larvae within a chamber off the main burrow, constructing brood cells within her tunnel and provisioning the cells with pollen and nectar collected from a wide range of flower species.

[5] It is polylectic and has been recorded foraging on maples Aceraceae, umbellifers Apiaceae, holly Aquifoliaceae, Asteraceae, crucifers Brassicaceae, dogwoods, Fagaceae, buttercups, roses and willows.

[1] Females of the parasitic strepsipteran Stylops melittae specialise in parasitising mining bees producing large numbers of larvae on flowers.

[2] In a study on Öland three species of flies were observed at or near the nest entrances of A. scotica or around flowers upon which the female bees were foraging.