Fabricius nomad bee, Nomada fabriciana, a small red-and-black cuckoo bee

Nomada fabriciana, the Fabricius nomad bee. Janet Graham, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Nomada fabriciana| Nomad bee (cuckoo) Common Red-abdomen cuckoo

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UK Bee Species

Fabricius Nomad Bee (Nomada fabriciana)

Nomada fabriciana (Linnaeus, 1767) · subfamily Nomadinae · family Apidae

Fabricius nomad bee is a small, wasp-shaped cuckoo bee with a rust-orange abdomen and neat black-banded antennae, one of the earliest nomads on the wing each spring and one of the commonest in Britain. Only seven or eight millimetres long, hairless and long-legged, it slips past the entrances of its host bee's burrows and lays its eggs inside, leaving its own larvae to kill the host young and eat the pollen store. See where it sits among Britain's bees on the UK Native Bee Species Map, or among the world's bees in the World Bee Atlas.

Quick Facts

Common nameFabricius nomad bee

Scientific nameNomada fabriciana

AuthorityLinnaeus, 1767

FamilyApidae (Nomadinae)

UK statusCommon in England & Wales

SizeSmall (7 to 10 mm)

ColourRusty-red abdomen, black

SocietyCleptoparasite (solitary)

ActiveMarch to August (bivoltine)

Main hostAndrena bicolor

Other hostsA. chrysosceles, flavipes

NestNone; uses host's

Kingdom	Animalia
Phylum	Arthropoda
Class	Insecta
Order	Hymenoptera
Family	Apidae
Subfamily	Nomadinae
Genus	Nomada
Species	Nomada fabriciana

A bee named for a student, not by him

This species carries one of the most confusing names in the British bee list, because it honours Johan Christian Fabricius but was not described by him. Linnaeus, Fabricius's own teacher, named the bee in 1767 and gave it the specific epithet fabriciana in tribute to his brilliant Danish student, then still in his twenties and already at work on the huge insect catalogues that would fill his life.^[3] The genus name Nomada is Greek for "wanderer", after the nomads' habit of drifting over the ground of the host bee's nesting site rather than digging a home of their own.^[7]

JCF

The bee was described by Linnaeus and named for his student, Johan Christian Fabricius, who went on to become one of the most productive entomologists of the eighteenth century. A teacher's small gesture, preserved for two and a half centuries in a name.^[3]

Nomads: bees that live like wasps

Nomad bees are cuckoo bees, cleptoparasites of the mining bees in the genus Andrena.^[4] A female Nomada does not build a nest, does not collect pollen, and does not have the pollen-carrying hairs of most other bees; she is a hairless, wasp-shaped bee with a shining coloured body and a single job, which is to find the burrow of her host species, slip inside while the owner is away, and lay her own eggs on the wall of an unsealed cell.^[4] When her tiny larva hatches, its first act is to search out and kill the host egg or larva with an enormous pair of curved mandibles; it then settles down to eat the pollen and nectar the host mother stocked the cell with.^[4] You can see where the family Apidae sits in the wider bee family tree in the World Bee Atlas.

One host above all

Every nomad species is closely tied to its host, and Fabricius nomad bee is no exception. Its main host across Britain and Europe is Gwynne's mining bee, Andrena bicolor, and where that species is common the Fabricius nomad is common too.^[5] A handful of other Andrena are used more occasionally: hawthorn mining bee (A. chrysosceles), yellow-legged mining bee (A. flavipes), buffish mining bee (A. nigroaenea) and short-winged mining bee (A. angustior).^[5] The huge size range of adults in a single population is one of the odder features of the species and is thought to reflect the size of the pollen cell the larva grew up inside: cells stocked for a small host produce small nomads, cells stocked for a large host produce large ones.^[5]

Two waves a year

In Britain the Fabricius nomad bee is bivoltine, running two generations in a single year to track its bivoltine host.^[6] The first flight runs from March to June, chasing the spring brood of Gwynne's mining bee, and the second runs from June to August with the second host generation.^[6] Adults visit a small range of flowers for their own nectar, especially dandelions, buttercups and umbellifers, but never carry pollen home. Look for them not on flowers so much as on the ground, patrolling patches of bare, warm soil where the host's burrows are hidden.^[1]

Where the small brown Gwynne's mining bee nests, the red-and-black Fabricius nomad is rarely far away.

Where and when you will see it

The Fabricius nomad bee is widespread through England and Wales, especially in the south, and thins out further north with only sporadic records from Scotland and Ireland.^[1] It occurs almost anywhere its host does, so nesting aggregations of Gwynne's mining bee on garden lawns, brownfield land, disturbed soil, chalk downland and open woodland are all good places to look.^[1] It is also present across much of Europe from Ireland to Turkey, and across the Palaearctic further east.^[6]

How to tell it apart

Britain has more than thirty species of Nomada, and many look superficially alike; a positive identification is often a job for a hand lens.^[2] The Fabricius nomad bee has three features together that no other British nomad shows: reddish antennae with a distinct black band on the middle segments (giving a "banded" appearance in the field), bidentate (two-toothed) mandibles, and a black labrum, the small plate above the mouth.^[1] The abdomen is mainly reddish, sometimes with narrow paler bands at the segment edges. A larger, chunkier nomad with all-yellow legs is more likely to be Gooden's nomad bee or Marsham's nomad bee.^[2]

Why the Fabricius nomad bee matters

Cuckoo bees like Nomada can look, at first, like a drag on the pollination system: they don't collect pollen, they don't build nests, and their presence means fewer host mining-bee cells will survive. In practice their story is the opposite. Cuckoo bees are only ever as abundant as their hosts, so a healthy nomad population is a signal that the mining-bee community underneath it is thriving.^[7] A garden that supports a red-and-black nomad on the lawn also supports the small brown mining bee it depends on, and the wider network of ground-nesting bees around them.^[8]

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Frequently asked questions

What is the Fabricius nomad bee?

It is a small cuckoo bee, Nomada fabriciana, in the family Apidae. Seven to ten millimetres long, hairless and wasp-shaped with a rusty-red abdomen and reddish black-banded antennae, it lays its eggs in the nests of Gwynne's mining bee and a handful of related mining bees.

Why is it called the Fabricius nomad bee?

It was named by Linnaeus in 1767 in honour of his Danish student Johan Christian Fabricius, who went on to become one of the most productive entomologists of the eighteenth century. The word "nomad" comes from the Greek for "wanderer", after the female's habit of drifting over the host's nesting ground.

Is it really a bee, or is it a wasp?

It is a true bee, but it looks and behaves in some ways like a small wasp because it does not need pollen-collecting hairs and has evolved a hairless, brightly-marked body. All bees, including nomads, feed their larvae on pollen and nectar; the Fabricius nomad simply lets another bee gather the pollen for it.

What is a cuckoo bee?

A cuckoo bee is a species whose females do not build their own nests. Instead, they enter the nests of another bee, called the host, and lay their eggs there. Their larvae eat the pollen store the host mother had gathered, usually after killing the host's own egg or young larva.

When are Fabricius nomad bees active?

They are bivoltine, with two generations a year. The first flight runs from March to June, chasing the spring brood of the host Andrena bicolor. The second runs from June to August with the summer generation. Almost any warm, sunny day in that window is a good time to look.

What is the main host of the Fabricius nomad bee?

The main host is Gwynne's mining bee (Andrena bicolor). Where Gwynne's mining bee nests in numbers, the Fabricius nomad is usually not far behind. Several other mining bees are used less often.

Do Fabricius nomad bees sting?

Very rarely. Solitary bees carry a sting but almost never use it. The Fabricius nomad has no colony or store of provisions to defend, is not territorial, and is completely safe around people.

Does the Fabricius nomad bee make honey?

No. Solitary bees, including cuckoos, do not make honey in harvestable quantities. Only the honeybee does. Compare the bee families in the World Bee Atlas.

Related species

Fellow Nomada

Gooden's Nomad Bee

Nomada goodenianaRead more → Fellow Nomada

Marsham's Nomad Bee

Nomada marshamellaRead more → Fellow Nomada

Painted Nomad Bee

Nomada fucataRead more →

Sources & references

BWARS (Bees, Wasps & Ants Recording Society). Species account: Nomada fabriciana (Linnaeus, 1767): identification by reddish banded antennae, bidentate mandibles and black labrum, main host Andrena bicolor, wide English and Welsh distribution. bwars.com.
Falk, S. Field Guide to the Bees of Great Britain and Ireland, Bloomsbury, and the Steven Falk Flickr collection: separation from other British Nomada by antennal banding and mandible shape.
Linnaeus, C. (1767), Systema Naturae, 12th edition, original description. Etymology: the specific epithet fabriciana honours Johan Christian Fabricius (1745 to 1808), Danish entomologist and Linnaeus's pupil; Nomada from Greek for "wanderer" (NBN Atlas; GBIF).
Rozen Jr, J.G. (1991). Evolution of cleptoparasitism in bees, with implications for their biology. American Museum Novitates (nomad-bee larval mandibles, egg placement in host cells, killing of host young). Also Odanaka et al. (2022) for phylogenetic host relations of Nomadinae.
Falk, S. & Lewington, R. (2019). Field Guide to the Bees of Great Britain and Ireland (revised edition): main host Andrena bicolor, additional hosts A. chrysosceles, A. flavipes, A. angustior and A. nigroaenea, size variation with host.
Crowley, L.M. et al. (2023). The genome sequence of Fabricius' Nomad Bee, Nomada fabriciana (Linnaeus, 1767). Wellcome Open Research 8:504 (Palaearctic distribution, UK status, bivoltinism, family placement).
Else, G.R. & Edwards, M. (2018). Handbook of the Bees of the British Isles. Ray Society (Nomadinae biology, cleptoparasitism and the relationship between host abundance and cuckoo abundance).
Sheffield, C.S., Pindar, A., Packer, L. & Kevan, P.G. (2013). The potential of cleptoparasitic bees as indicator taxa for assessing bee communities. Apidologie 44: 501 to 510.

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