cuckoo bee | Bugging You From San Juan Island

Is He Stuck or Just Sleeping?

Posted on March 26, 2022 by "BUGGING" YOU FROM San Juan Island Leave a comment

I found this tiny bee who looked to be stuck to a thorn on my Bois D’Arc tree this afternoon. At first glance, I thought perhaps a March fly, and a dead one at that, but it turned out this is a most likely a “he” Nomad bee, and he wasn’t stuck at all, but just sleeping.

Nomad Bee – Stuck or Just Sleeping (March 26, 2022)

I learned something new today about bees that I did not know. My friend, Eric Eaton’s wife (link to Eric’s book about wasps in my Read More section) , shared with me that some bees will often sleep in this manner, attached to a substrate like this thorn or a twig, by their mandibles. Thanks Heidi! 🙂

My bee was definitely gripping the end of the thorn with its mandibles. Before I found out my bee was only napping, I wasn’t certain what was going on. I worried maybe the bee had fallen victim to some weird fungus and was now locked in a death vise. Worries unfounded! The little bee released his grip as I was about to clip the end of the twig (with bee attached) and take it into the house to view under the microscope.

Nomad bees are pretty cool. They are cuckoo bees, cleptoparasites of other bees (usually Andrena bees or Melitta bees) and target the nest provisions gathered by the host bees for their own young. Nomad bees will find the nests of host bees using olfactory and visual cues. The fertilized female will lay her eggs in these nests, where her offspring will develop after devouring the offspring of the host bee, and eating the food the host parent had provisioned.

Check out the video footage of this little bee as he woke up this afternoon and read more about Nomad bees in the attached links in my Read More section.

Read More About Nomad Bees Here

Bugguide.net – Nomada https://bugguide.net/node/view/5211
Alexander, B. A. 1994. Species-groups and cladistic analysis of the cleptoparasitic bee genus Nomada (Hymenoptera: Apoidea). University of Kansas Science Bulletin 55: 175-238. (Full Text)
Eaton, Eric. 2021. Wasps: The Astonishing Diversity of a Misunderstood Insect. Princeton University Press. https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691211428/wasps
Rankin, C. 2021. Introducing the Nomad Bees. Natural History Society of Northumbria. https://www.nhsn.org.uk/nomad-bees/

Thanks for reading!

Cynthia Brast is an independent entomologist living on San Juan Island. Check out her YouTube Channel, Bugging You From San Juan Island to see more amazing 6 and 8-legged creatures found in the San Juans. https://www.youtube.com/user/buggingyoufromsji/featured

All Wet! April 26, 2018

Posted on April 27, 2018 by "BUGGING" YOU FROM San Juan Island Leave a comment

A water trough and cool morning temperatures equate with a desperate situation if your wings are wet and they aren’t the inflatable kind that keep you afloat. I rescued two, soon to be drowned, little specimens yesterday morning and can tell you, they were “happy” to dry off in the sunshine ☀️ .

The first rescue was a delicate, Green Lacewing in the family Chrysopidae. Lacewings are in the insect order Neuroptera which means nerve-winged insect. It is named for the intricate, sheer, net-like pattern of its wings. They are valued because they prey on garden and orchard pests insects like aphids. The intriguing thing about this specimen (make sure to pay close attention to frames 0.22 and 0.24 in the video) was its reaction to my voice when I stopped Millhouse the cat from interfering with my cinematography. The Lacewing appears to have a look of surprise when it hears me.

The second rescue from the water trough is the beautiful, iridescent green cuckoo bee you see in the video below. Cuckoo bees are actually wasps in the insect order Hymenoptera, and family Chrysididae. While they are pollinators in that adults seek out nectar for food from flowers, they are named, like the cuckoo bird, after their habit of seeking out nests of other wasp and bee species to steal food, or the life of developing larvae as a host for their own young. Never-mind that part of the life cycle of this bee. It is truly a gem, glittering in the sunshine…a jewel worn by a new spring blossom in the garden.