Photo: Janet Graham / CC BY 2.0

Nomada panzeri

Panzer's Nomad Bee

A medium-sized nomad bee (9–11 mm) with a black and yellow wasp-like body, orange-red legs, and red markings on the abdomen. It closely resembles Nomada flava but females have black erect hairs on the clypeus (pale in N. flava) and darker wing margins. It has no pollen-collecting apparatus. It is a cleptoparasite of spring-flying Andrena species, especially Andrena fucata and Andrena helvola, whose nests it targets in woodland clearings and forest edges. It is univoltine, flying from March to July. In Switzerland it is common in forests and woodland edges from lowlands to montane elevations, classified as Least Concern (LC) on the Swiss Red List.