Wool Carder Bee, Photo by Susan Chesloff
The attractive bee is commonly known as the Wool Carder Bee. It gets the name due to the behaviors of the female, which scrapes hairs off of leaves to create a nice soft nest where she then lays her eggs. If you have the common garden plant known as “Lambs Ear” (Stachys lanata) or Foxglove (Digitalis spp.) you probably have this bee in your garden. The male bees are quite territorial and will vigorously defend patches of Lambs Ear or other favored plants (there are reports of them killing intruding honey bees!). The males then attempt to mate with females that fly into “their patch” to gather ‘wool’, pollen or nectar.
Similar to the Giant Asian Resin bee featured last week, the Wool Carder Bee is not native to North America but is a solitary species and therefore likely has little impact on native bees. It is believed that it was accidentally introduced to the Americas in the 1960’s and has since spread throughout North and South America (see global distribution map below). Gardens and garden plants have likely aided in the spread of this species.
More Resources
Link to species page on Discover Life (detailed morphological characteristics, difference between males and females, flower visitation records)-
http://www.discoverlife.org/mp/20q?search=Anthidium+manicatum
Link to global distribution map on Discover life-
http://www.discoverlife.org/mp/20m?kind=Anthidium+manicatum
Link to images on Bugguide
http://bugguide.net/index.php?q=search&keys=anthidium+manicatum&search=Search
Wool Carder Bee Page
http://www.insectpix.net/Carder_bee_page.htm
Have a good bee photo? Submit it (to beewatchers@gmail.com) with a description of the location and we may use it in a future “Bee of the Week” feature.
As I said in another “Bee of the week” section. It is better to link to the Bugguide information page than to the search page. For instance http://bugguide.net/node/view/7744 goes directly to the information and images of this species. The search, on the other hand, may include any entry in which this bee is mentioned, no matter how irrelevant the mention is.