Species: Nomad bee - unnamed 2 (Nomada sp.)
Family: Bumble and Honey Bees (APIDAE)
Category: Insects (Other)
Location: SE
A. Insects (Other)
More extensive information on insects can be found in a separate blog post.
B. Bumble and Honey Bees (APIDAE)
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.
C. Nomad bee - unnamed 2 (Nomada sp.)
This individual was spotted and photographed in early May 2024. It's a Nomad bee, but we are unable to say which of the 34 Nomads found in this country it might be. The ever-helpful country recorder for bees confirms both these points.
With the Lathbury's Nomad Bee - a different Nomad - the sight of the reddish pile on its thorax enabled the recorder to confirm species identity. But without something diagnostic like that, one can only identify down to the level of genus or family. This is likely to be a common theme when dealing with solitary 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.
Images
Nomad bee - unnamed 2 (Nomada sp.)
This individual was spotted and photographed in early May 2024. It's a Nomad bee, but we are unable to say which of the 34 Nomads found in this country it might be. The ever-helpful country recorder for bees confirms both these points.
With the Lathbury's Nomad Bee - a different Nomad - the sight of the reddish pile on its thorax enabled the recorder to confirm species identity. But without something diagnostic like that, one can only identify down to the level of genus or family. This is likely to be a common theme when dealing with solitary 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.
