Europe and adjoining western Asia and North Africa
Fine-art photographic collection
Epeolus variegatus
A bee that builds no nest, gathers no pollen and places its future inside another bee’s sealed nursery.
About this species
Variegated Cuckoo Bee
Epeolus variegatus(Linnaeus, 1758)
Information reviewed15 July 2026
Epeolus variegatus is a cleptoparasitic cuckoo bee associated mainly with plasterer bees of the genus Colletes. The female enters a host nest and inserts an egg into the wall of a provisioned brood cell, transferring the cost of feeding her offspring to another species.
Taxonomy
Animalia · Arthropoda · Insecta · Hymenoptera · Apidae · Epeolus
Accepted taxon. · checked 2026-07-15
Europe and adjoining western Asia and North AfricaBroad range and selected reference localities — not a complete occurrence map.
Open flower-rich habitats containing nesting aggregations of Colletes bees.
Diurnal during the flight periods of its hosts.
Adults take nectar; larvae consume the food stored by a Colletes female.
Solitary.
What makes this species remarkable?
The female hides each egg inside the lining of a Colletes brood cell, where the host bee cannot easily detect it before sealing the chamber.
Its first-stage larva is equipped to eliminate the host offspring and inherit the entire pollen-and-nectar provision for itself.
Confirmed hosts include Colletes daviesanus and C. fodiens, so the cuckoo bee’s distribution closely follows the nesting sites of those bees.
More photographs
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