Photo: Aiwok / CC BY-SA 3.0

Nomada signata

Broad-banded Nomad Bee

A medium-sized cuckoo bee (10–14 mm) with a black and yellow wasp-like body, orange legs, and no pollen-collecting apparatus. It closely resembles Nomada flava. It is a specialist brood parasite (cleptoparasite) of Andrena fulva (Tawny Mining Bee), laying its eggs in the host's brood cells where the larva consumes the pollen provision. It is univoltine, flying from March to June, coinciding with its host's flight period. In Switzerland it occurs in gardens, parks, meadows, and open woodlands wherever its host nests, from lowlands to montane elevations. It is widespread but local. Swiss Red List: Least Concern (LC).