Nomad bee - unnamed 1

This is a male Nomad bee that closely resembles a Fork-jawed Nomad Bee.

Species introduction

At a glance
Latin name: 
Nomada sp.
Family: 
Bumble and Honey Bees
Family Latin name: 
APIDAE
Category: 
Insects other

Species description

Species description

This is a male Nomad bee that closely resembles a Fork-jawed Nomad Bee, judging from the angle of the one photograph we have. Exact identifications of this species from others in its family is almost impossible from a photograph. The individuals shown here were photographed in late-May and early-April, both settling on a Bramble leaf. Male Nomad bees do not sting, whereas females do.

As with the majority of Nomad bees (perhaps 850 different species worldwide and 34 known in the British Isles), this species (whichever one it might be) is cleptoparasitic, primarily on the Andrena family of bees. Other Nomad bees that have been spotted in the cemetery but which we cannot identify to species level will be listed here if we believe each to be sufficiently different from any of the others.

Species photographs

Larger photograph(s) (click to magnify)
This is a male Nomad bee that closely resembles a Fork-jawed Nomad Bee.
It is not clear whether this photograph and the first in this sequence show the same species of bee. With there being 34 known species in this family in the British Isles, varieties between each species are small. That this individual has two yellow spots on its scutellum may or may not make it a different species to the one in the first photograph, as some members of this family have such spots if female, yet none if male.

Details

Species family information

Nomad bees are a genus of small, relatively hairless bees that often resemble small wasps. They are between 4 and 9 millimetres in length. All Nomad bees steal from other species of bees. Females enter the host's nest burrow to lay eggs before any cells have been sealed up. When its grub hatches from the egg, it will devour the host egg or grub with its large jaws before feeding on the food store that the host parent had provisioned the cells with.

There are 34 species of British Nomad bees. Differentiating one from another requires considerable magnification - and knowledge.

The Nomada genus of bees belong to the Apidiae family, which are commonly known as Bumble and Honey Bees.

Category information

Insects evolved in the Ordovician from a crustacean ancestral lineage as terrestrial invertebrates with six legs (the Hexapoda). This was the time when terrestrial plants first appeared. In the Devonian some insects developed wings and flight, the first animals to do so. An early flying group was the Odonata from the Carboniferous, the damselflies and dragonflies, which have densely-veined wings and long, ten-segmented bodies. They are day-flying carnivores, with an aquatic larval stage, so are commonly seen flying near water. The carnivorous larvae are called nymphs. Odonata species are short-lived, damselflies surviving for 2-4 weeks, dragonflies for up to 2 months.

Some insect groups in the Cretaceous co-evolved with the flowering plants, and they have had a close association ever since. These groups are the Hymenoptera (bees, wasps, and ants), the Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths), the Diptera (flies), and the Coleoptera (beetles). The diversity of beetles is astonishing. Of all the known animal species on the planet, one in five is a beetle!