Emerald cuckoo-orchid bee
The emerald cuckoo-orchid bee is a big, shiny bee that is bright metallic green all over. It is a cuckoo bee: it does not build its own nest. Instead it sneaks its eggs into the nests of other bees.
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Fun facts
It waits until the other bee has left its nest, then quickly lays an egg in a finished cell.
Its baby grows through five stages. In the second stage it gets rid of the host bee's egg.
The females have no pollen baskets on their legs, because they never collect food for their babies.
The males collect sweet-smelling stuff from flowers, mostly orchids. It may help them attract females.
Most asked questions about Emerald cuckoo-orchid bee
?What is a cuckoo bee?
A bee that lays its eggs in another bee's nest, just like the cuckoo bird does with other birds.
?How big is the emerald cuckoo-orchid bee?
About 20 millimetres long, so it is a fairly big bee.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Exaerete smaragdina
- Group
- Bees and bumblebees
- Family
- Apidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hymenoptera > Apidae
- Lives on
- North America, South America
Where the facts come from
- Exaerete smaragdina (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 Harsha Jayaramaiah. CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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