Prunus miner bee
The prunus miner bee is a small bee that digs its nest in the ground. It is so small that you might think it is a fly. It comes out in spring, just when its favourite flowers start to bloom.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
It lives alone. Every female builds her own nest, and there is no queen and no workers.
The mother digs a tunnel straight down into the ground, then a side tunnel ending in a tiny room about 2 centimetres tall.
In each room she leaves a ball of pollen and nectar about the size of a pea and lays one egg on it.
One female can dig 8 to 10 of these baby rooms.
To find her way home, she flies in a loop shaped like a figure eight.
Most asked questions about Prunus miner bee
?Where does the prunus miner bee nest?
In the ground. The female digs a tunnel with small rooms for her babies.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Andrena prunorum
- Group
- Bees and bumblebees
- Family
- Andrenidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hymenoptera > Andrenidae
- Lives on
- North America
- Also known as
- Purple miner bee
Where the facts come from
- Andrena prunorum (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 USGS Bee Inventory and Monitoring Lab from Beltsville, Maryland, USA. Public domain, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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