#corageious

Nomada are one of the more colorful bees in Eastern North America.  Relatively bare of hairs (for a bee) which makes sense since they don't carry pollen, they steal it.  They steal it by dropping off an egg in another bee's nest and its young kill's the host young and eats all the food (you probably know people like this).  You may ask which species of bees host this Nomada graenicheri?  And, I will say I don't know as bees nests are hard to find to begin with let along figuring out what is parasitizing them. Picture taken by Erick Hernandez and specimen captured in the mountains of West Virginia by Mr. WV Bees, Mark Hepner.