File:Lil Blue Bee (2300086748).jpg

I was outside in the garden this afternoon and stumbled across this lil guy. Its a Cloak and Dagger Cuckoo bee and they roost on twigs for the night.

This group of bees is homeless for a completely different reason. Unlike the male Lipotriches, even the females of this species don't build nests. They don't collect pollen . They don't raise their offspring at all. In fact, the lifestyle of these bees is completely different to what most people think of when bees are mentioned. These bees have taken a page - and a title - from the book of a peculiar group of birds: the cuckoos. We all know how cuckoo birds lay their eggs in the nests of other birds. Cuckoo bees do the same thing, laying their eggs in the freshly provisioned nests of bees such as Blue banded bees and Teddy bear bees (Amegilla spp). This phenomenon is known as kleptoparasitism (i.e. parasitism by theft). During the day they patrol areas visited by Amegilla bees (and in sunlight the blue really stands out and they can be seen from a long distance), then follow them to their burrow and eventually enter it (presumably when the host is absent) and lay an egg inside. Some cuckoo bees are equipped special mandibles used to kill any host offspring already present. Strangely enough, there have been reports that the host offspring isn't always killed, and it can make it through to adulthood - though it's malnourished and emerges at 1/4 of the size of a normal individual.