Marsham's Nomad Bee

Marsham’s Nomad Bee is a small cuckoo bee and is a wasp mimic with yellow and black stripes.

They are a cleptoparasite laying their eggs on the pollen masses made by the mining bees of the genus Andrena, including Andrena scotica (Chocolate Mining Bee) and Andrena trimmerana (Trimmer’s Mining Bee). Instead of digging their own underground nest site, the female Marsham’s Nomad Bee will wait until an Andrena female has excavated a nest tunnel and has provisioned a nest cell with pollen for her larvae. The female Marsham’s Nomad Bee will take advantage whilst the host is out gathering pollen and visit the nest cell and lay her own egg in it. The larvae will then consume the pollen provision of the host bee.

Marsham’s Nomad Bee’s can be seen from March through to September and can be seen in a wide variety of habitats, including coastal and inland areas, wherever its host mining bees can be found. It also has been recorded with some regularity in gardens.

It is airly common and widespread in Britain.