Europe and temperate western Asia
Fine-art photographic collection
Coelioxys conicus
A cuckoo bee whose first larva is armed to murder its host.
About this species
Large Sharp-tail Bee
Coelioxys conicus(Linnaeus, 1758)
Information reviewed15 July 2026
Coelioxys conicus does not build or provision a nest. The female enters the nest of a leafcutter bee and inserts an egg into a cell intended for the host’s offspring.
Taxonomy
Animalia · Arthropoda · Insecta · Hymenoptera · Apidae · Coelioxys
Accepted as Coelioxys conicus; the gallery uses the obsolete feminine ending Coelioxys conica. · checked 2026-07-15
Europe and temperate western AsiaBroad documented range and selected reference localities — not a complete occurrence map.
Flower-rich open habitats where suitable leafcutter-bee hosts nest.
Adults are active in summer.
Adults take nectar; larvae are cleptoparasites in nests of other bees.
Solitary cleptoparasitic bee.
What makes this species remarkable?
The sharply pointed female abdomen is used to force an egg through the host’s leaf-built cell lining.
The first-stage larva carries enlarged sickle-like jaws and kills the host egg or young larva inside the sealed cell.
After eliminating its rival, the parasite sheds the specialised killing jaws and develops on the pollen store collected by the host mother.