Marsham's nomad bee
Marsham's nomad bee is black and yellow and looks a lot like a wasp. It is a cuckoo bee: it does not build its own nest. Instead it sneaks into the nests of mining bees and lets them feed its babies.
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Fun facts
It is called a cuckoo bee because, like the cuckoo bird, it leaves its young in someone else's nest.
It is about 1 to 1.3 centimetres long. The males are smaller than the females and have yellow marks on their black heads.
In some places it has one family a year in spring, and in others it has two, one in spring and one in late summer.
It is often seen in gardens, wherever the mining bees it needs are living.
Most asked questions about Marsham's nomad bee
?Is Marsham's nomad bee a wasp?
No, it is a bee. It just looks a lot like a wasp.
?Does Marsham's nomad bee make honey?
No. It does not even build its own nest. It uses the nests of mining bees.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Nomada marshamella
- Group
- Bees and bumblebees
- Family
- Apidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hymenoptera > Apidae
- Lives on
- Europe, Asia
Where the facts come from
- Nomada marshamella (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 Arnstein Staverløkk. CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.
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