Six-banded sweat bee
The six-banded sweat bee is a big sweat bee with white, felt-like bands on its tummy. It digs its nest in sandy or loamy ground. The funny thing is that some of these bees live alone, some share a nest, and some live in a family with a queen and workers.
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Fun facts
In the north it lives alone, but in the south it lives in families with a queen and workers.
Its nest is a tunnel dug at a slant into the ground, with small rooms off to the side and a little heap of soil at the door.
In each little room the mother puts a ball of nectar and pollen and lays one egg on top.
It takes about 5 weeks for an egg to grow into a grown-up bee.
Females spend the winter sleeping inside their nest and start new nests at the end of May.
Most asked questions about Six-banded sweat bee
?How big is the six-banded sweat bee?
It is about 14 to 16 millimetres long, big for a sweat bee.
?What flowers does the six-banded sweat bee like?
Wide-open flowers such as asters, daisies and sunflowers.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Halictus sexcinctus
- Group
- Bees and bumblebees
- Family
- Halictidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hymenoptera > Halictidae
- Lives on
- Europe, Asia
- Also known as
- Six-banded furrow bee
Where the facts come from
- Halictus sexcinctus (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Fritz Geller-Grimm. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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