Spotted bees
| Spotted bees | ||||||||||
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A spotted bee from Australia |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||
| Thyreus | ||||||||||
| Tank , 1806 |
The spotted bees ( Thyreus ) are a genus from the Apidae family within the bees . There are twelve species of them in Europe , five in Central Europe. Spot bees are brood parasites and are therefore counted among the cuckoo bees .
features
The bees reach a body length of 7 to 15 millimeters. Their body has a black base color and has striking white patches of hair on the head, thorax , abdomen and legs. They are very similar to the closely related mourning bees ( Melecta ), but differ from them in that they have a flattened label that protrudes far back and is provided with a tuft of hair in the middle . Spotted bees cannot be distinguished from one another based on external characteristics in the field.
Occurrence
The spotted bees are distributed from North Africa through South , Central Europe and Asia to Australia and the Solomon Islands . They are found in the vicinity of their hosts , for example Thyreus orbatus as a parasite of Anthophora quadrimaculata on clay walls and walls. Spotted bees fly in one generation in Central Europe from July to August. They are very rare in Central Europe.
Way of life
The adults feed on the nectar of various plants polylectically . When staying overnight, both sexes usually cling to parts of the plant with their mandibles . The larvae develop parasitically from fur bees of the genus Anthophora . They probably pupate without a cocoon . Eggs are laid as with the weeping bees ( Melecta ). The females penetrate the host's nest and lay their egg in the already closed brood cell by piercing the cell cover with the end of the abdomen.
European species
- Thyreus aberrans (Morawitz, 1875)
- Thyreus affinis (Morawitz, 1874)
- Thyreus hellenicus Lieftinck, 1968
- Thyreus hirtus (De Beaumont, 1940)
- Thyreus histrionicus (Illiger, 1806)
- Thyreus hohmanni Tkalcu, 1994
- Thyreus orbatus (Lepeleltier, 1841)
- Thyreus picaron Lieftinck, 1968
- Thyreus ramosus (Lepeleltier, 1841)
- Thyreus scutellaris (Fabricius, 1781)
- Thyreus tricuspis (Perez, 1883)
- Thyreus truncatus (Perez, 1883)
Individual evidence
literature
- Andreas Müller, Albert Krebs, Felix Amiet: Bees. Central European species, way of life, observation. Naturbuch-Verlag, Augsburg 1997, ISBN 3-89440-241-5 .