#cuckoo bees

it's a commonly accepted fact that animals are, on the whole, cuter when sleeping. in the case of bees, they're also not bastards when sleeping, so i could get as close to this cloak and dagger cuckoo bee (Thyreus sp.) as i wanted. although my presence was unnoticed or at least deemed unimportant, it did briefly buzz when i grabbed the plant and i could feel the vibrations while holding the stem, which was neat

i don't think there was an angle of this thing i didn't photograph at the time, knowing full well all the angles in the world still wouldn't help me identify it to species. but look at its stupid eyes

fuzziest of all time (as usual thank you so much to the amazing photographers of inaturalist)

the most precious little fairies

inat links 🔗 under the cut:

Nomad bee (Nomada flava) feeding on Forget-me-not

Calliopsis Cuckoo Nomad Bee (Holcopasites calliopsidis)

July 25, 2020

Southeastern Pennsylvania

Bumblebees with a dark secret

Meet the Vestal Cuckoo bumblebee. Looks like a lot of other bumblebees, but this one is wearing a DISGUISE! It is in fact a bee that waits until a queen bumblebee is out foraging, then arrives at the nest, EATS the larvae and then lays her own eggs in there. 

She then buggers off and leaves the eggs to be looked after by the owner of the nest. Cuckoo bees drink nectar from flowers, and the females eat pollen to help develop their ovaries. However, being cleptoparasitic means the hard work ends there and they don’t collect pollen to take back to the nest. This is left completely up to the host workers. The cuckoo bee larvae themselves eat any existing pollen balls left for the host larvae, as well as new pollen stocks brought to them by the host workers. If the female cuckoo bee hasn’t already done so, the cuckoo larvae will kill and eat the host larvae, too.