Adults are commonly about 10–15 mm long.
Fine-art photographic collection
Osmia cornifrons
A solitary bee deployed by the thousands as a managed pollinator of apple orchards.
About this species
Hornfaced Bee
Osmia cornifrons(Radoszkowski, 1887)
Information reviewed15 July 2026
Osmia cornifrons is an East Asian mason bee managed commercially for fruit-tree pollination. Females nest in reed tubes and other narrow cavities, building a linear series of mud-partitioned cells and provisioning each with pollen.
Taxonomy
Animalia · Arthropoda · Insecta · Hymenoptera · Megachilidae · Osmia
Accepted taxon. · checked 2026-07-15
East Asia, with introduced populations in North AmericaBroad range and selected reference localities — not a complete occurrence map.
East Asia, with introduced populations in North America
Woodland edges, orchards, gardens and structures offering narrow nesting cavities.
Early-spring adult flight overlaps with flowering apples and other fruit trees.
Pollen and nectar, especially from spring-flowering trees and shrubs.
Solitary, but readily nests in dense managed aggregations.
What makes this species remarkable?
In Japan this species became a major orchard pollinator and has been used across a very large proportion of the country’s apple-growing area.
A female builds a precise row of brood chambers in a reed or hole, sealing every pollen-filled cell behind a partition of gathered mud.
Pollen is carried dry on dense hairs beneath the abdomen, so every visit can brush large quantities directly against an apple flower’s reproductive parts.