Wool carder bee
The wool carder bee is a black bee with bright yellow spots on its face and tummy. The mother bee scrapes soft fluffy hairs off woolly plants and rolls them into a ball. She uses this fluff to make a cosy lining for her nest.
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Fun facts
Its favourite fluff comes from a soft garden plant called lamb's ears.
Males guard a patch of flowers and chase away other bees from their territory.
Unlike most bees, the males are bigger than the females.
It reached North America by accident and was first seen there in 1963 in New York.
The mother likes to build her nest high up, maybe to keep it safe from enemies.
Most asked questions about Wool carder bee
?Why is it called a wool carder bee?
Because it scrapes fluffy hairs from plants and rolls them up, like people carding wool.
?How big is the wool carder bee?
About 1 to 1.7 centimetres long. Males are bigger than females.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Anthidium manicatum
- Group
- Bees and bumblebees
- Family
- Megachilidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hymenoptera > Megachilidae
- Lives on
- Europe, Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Australia and Oceania
- Also known as
- European wool carder bee
Where the facts come from
- Anthidium manicatum (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Bruce Marlin. CC BY-SA 2.5, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.
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