Hover bees
| Hover bees | ||||||||||||
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Hover bee ( Melitturga clavicornis ) |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Melitturga | ||||||||||||
| Letreille , 1809 |
Melitturga , with its German name floating bees , is a genus of the Andrenidae , of which there are only about 17 species. These are limited to the Old World, in Central Europe there are only two rare species of the genus: Melitturga praestans and M. clavicornis . Only the latter is known from Germany, Austria and Switzerland, but it is considered extinct in Germany.
The genus Melitta belongs to a different family ( Melittidae ) despite the similarity of names .
features
The hover bees are about 13 to 16 mm tall and resemble large sand bees . The antennas are relatively short and club-shaped. For bees, the males have strikingly large eyes and a yellow-colored face. In the females, the head shield is colored yellow, the abdomen is quite bald.
Way of life
The hover bees fly in summer, late June to mid-August, and only have one generation a year. The females dig nests in gutted soil, which can also be compacted, often in smaller colonies. The nest entrance is always left open.
The males stand in the air similar to hoverflies (hence the name), search for females with their large eyes and burst in the direction in which they see a female. Sometimes several males chase a female at the same time. To sleep, the males cling to or bite into plants. They often form sleeping societies.
Pollen collection / transport
The females have a brush of loosely standing, short hair on the rear rail and heel ( tibia and metatarsus ). The pollen is moistened with nectar and transported in a characteristic way as a ring around the rear rails. A similar pollen transport is otherwise known only in Panurginus .
M. clavicornis is specialized on pollen from butterflies , especially alfalfa , which M. praestans collects is not known.
Breeding parasites
The following cuckoo bees are known to be breeding parasites : Ammobatoides abdomonalis and Sphecodes albilabris
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e Müller, Andreas., Krebs, Albert., Amiet, Felix .: Bees: Central European genera, way of life, observation . Natur-Buch-Verl, Augsburg 1997, ISBN 3-89440-241-5 ( wildbiene.com ).
- ↑ Solitary bee species: Hover bees (Melitturga). Retrieved April 26, 2019 .
- ↑ a b c d P. Westrich: The wild bees of Germany . E. Ulmer, Stuttgart 2018, ISBN 978-3-8186-0123-2 , pp. 827 .