Sharp-tailed bees (genus Coelioxys) owe their common name to the shape of the ending of the abdomen. In females, the abdomen usually ends in narrow, sharp spine. But it’s not always the case. For my cartoon I chose Coelioxys alatus but the other candidate I was considering was Coelioxys obtusiventris 
Sharp-tailed bees are cuckoos, laying their eggs in other species’ nests. They share an interesting trait with the honeybee – their eyes are hairy.
Don’t know what to buy for Christmas? Let the Australian bees help you!
Yes, these are really common names of two bee species. And, believe it or not, the domino cuckoo bee is a brood parasite of the teddy bear bee!
Honeybee can visit many plant species all over the world – but it doesn’t make it the best pollinator for them all. For example, it doesn’t like visiting alfalfa (Medicago sativa). In order to be pollinated, alfalfa flower has to be tripped by a bee, and it hits it in the head with its stamens in the process. The honeybee doesn’t like such a mistreating but there are other species, like the alfalfa leafcutter bee (Megachile rotundata) or the alkali bee (Nomia melanderi) who don’t care. Both of them are bred as pollinators of alfalfa.
I’m not sure whether the plant on the drawing is alfalfa, or some related species but I hope you don’t mind.
Oh no, I’m so hopeless in challenges. I haven’t even made it to half of the #inktobee and not sure if I’ll ever catch up. Never mind, I have some absolutely amazing story for you.
Stingless bees are very small social bees from the family Apidae which can be found in tropics and subtropics. Some of them have quite strange dietary habits – three famous species of “vulture bees” feed on carrion, some species come to humans to lick their sweat, and there are also a few species which… suck tears. According to the researchers, they are quite adept at collecting them. Experienced workers are so gentle that they almost don’t disturb their ‘victim’. I strongly recommend you read the recently published review article, the research on these bees is really interesting and there are photos of the bees in action. Hans Bำnziger, the first author of the article, let the bees feed on his tears, and his dedication to research is impressive. I was amazed that he was marking these bees with spots of paint with the help of brush and mirror, when they were sitting at his eyes ๐ฎ And these bees are tiny, only a few milimeters long!
I once read another paper about these bees, and the cartoon you see is a remake of a drawing I did in Polish for my other fanpage.
Bees love sun, of course! If you want to go bee-watching, it’s best to choose a warm, sunny day without much wind.
But… do you remember that one bumblebee who likes rain? It was on the blog quite a while ago ๐
Road verges are often buzzing with pollinators. If they are rarely mowed, or even consist of sown flowers, they provide food for bees, butterflies and others. But living by a road has its disadvantages. One of them is a risk of being hit by car when crossing the road. I don’t know whether costs or benefits of flowering road verges for pollinators prevail, the review I read on the topic was inconclusive. Anyway, I would not sow flowers on the highway median strip.
I just read in some paper that female bees cache pollen and nectar for their offspring. Usually underground, of course.
Another cartoon about pollen specialist bees, that is, species where females collect pollen exclusively from a certain group of plant species. Viper’s bugloss mason bees (Hoplitis adunca and H. anthocopoides) are examples of such specialists. They both are native to Europe and some neighbouring regions but H. anthocopoides can now be found also in North America where it was introduced.
Some bee species look very similar to each other, so much that sometimes it is difficult to tell them apart even by professionals. It’s interesting that sometimes they look alike but differ in their biology. For example, Andrena afzeliella and Andrena ovatula, thought to be one species until recently, have distinct food preferences. The former prefers flowers of Fabaceae but likes many different species of this family, the latter’s diet is restricted to bushes belonging to this family, like gorse.
Young bumblebee queens spend a few days feeding and looking for a male to mate. Then, they don’t wait for winter to come but dig a hibernaculum and go to sleep – sometimes as early as June!
The European wool carder bee (Anthidium manicatum) lines her nest with hairs scrapped off the plants like Stachys byzantina or Helichrysum arenarium. Females can be seen with balls of wool under their abdomen, when they carry it back to the nest.
Non-honey bees 