Waiting for the Right Moment, Pt. 5 - _TNY_8863S2

I simply adore the eyes on Nomad bees. The problem with shooting them though is that they, as cleptoparasites on other solitary bees are on an almost constant move to locate a bee burrow to sneak down.

 

Well, these two (and another one) were different as they were parked on the ground outside a large (large enough to fit my hand into it) hole under a tree stump.

 

The explantation I have been given is that this species, the Marsham's nomad bee (Nomada marshamella) often parasitizes on nests of the Trimmer's mining bee (Andrena trimmerana) which is semi-social in that they can share a common entrance hole where each female makes her own nest and these two were waiting to make a move and go down and replace eggs with their own.

 

For me this was extremely fortunate as I had an unusal amount of time to creep up closer and take photos. This one was manually stacked in Photoshop out of part 3 and part 4 into one with both bees in focus.

 

Part 1 here: flickr.com/photos/tinyturtle/48051367507/

 

Part 2 here: www.flickr.com/photos/tinyturtle/49785153878/

 

Part 3 here: www.flickr.com/photos/tinyturtle/50516850743/

 

Part 4 here: www.flickr.com/photos/tinyturtle/50960066176/

Done