Common sand bee
| Common sand bee | ||||||||||||
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Andrena flavipes : young female |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Andrena flavipes | ||||||||||||
| Tank , 1799 |
The common sand bee ( Andrena flavipes ) is a bee from the genus of sand bees ( Andrena ).
features
The bees grow to be ten to fourteen millimeters long and resemble the honey bee , but with more distinct hair ties at the end of the tergite . The hair is predominantly colored light brown. In old age, however, almost all of the hair apart from the more orange colored scopae can wear off.
Similar species
The fat sand bee Andrena gravida looks very similar to the common sand bee. But unlike this one, she has light hair on the belly side. It is also univolted and can only be found in spring.
Occurrence
The animals are found in almost all of Europe . They live in open habitats with sandy or loamy spots, such as forest edges , meadows, sand and gravel pits and sandy heaths . To build nests, the females need sparse to bare spots on the ground. The bees are bivoltine, so they fly two generations per year. The first generation flies from mid-March (males) or early April (females) to the end of May, the second from the end of July to September. They are common in Central Europe, especially in sandy habitats.
Way of life
They feed polylectically on the nectar and pollen of a number of different plants, predominantly on umbelliferous plants (Apiaceae), sunflower plants (Asteraceae), cruciferous plants (Brassicaceae), buttercups (Ranunculaceae), rose plants (Rosaceae) and willow plants (Salicaceae).
The females dig earth nests, with two to three brood cells about 16 to 23 centimeters deep in one nest. They often nest in colonies (so-called aggregations) where several hundred bees can create their nests next to each other. The nest openings remain open during the day, they are only closed at night and when it rains. The bees carry pollen into each brood chamber, in which the female then lays an egg. The larvae of the bees are parasitized by the wasp bee Nomada fucata . Pupation takes place in a cocoon .
supporting documents
Web links
literature
- Heiko Bellmann : bees, wasps, ants. Hymenoptera of Central Europe . Franckh-Kosmos Verlags-GmbH & Co KG, Stuttgart 1995, ISBN 3-440-09690-4 .
- Andreas Müller, Albert Krebs, Felix Amiet: Bees. Central European species, way of life, observation. Naturbuch-Verlag, Augsburg 1997, ISBN 3-89440-241-5 .
