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| Insects of Britain and Ireland: the families of Hymenoptera |
Gum Bees.
Adults small to large; 4.5–15 mm long; very hairy; with branched or feathery hairs on the body. Solitary insects (not forming organised communities, but often nesting in colonies).
Head. Antennal segments (10–)12 (females), or (10–)13 (males). Antennae geniculate. Tongue shorter than the prementum; usually not pointed (broad and truncate, emarginate or rounded in all females and most males, pointed in a few males). Labial palps with all the segments similar in length and subcylindrical. Mentum and submentum present.
Thorax. Pronotum more or less straight at the back; short, not extending back to the tegulae. Cenchri absent. Wings present. Fore-wings with a conspicuous pterostigma, or without a pterostigma; with the venation well developed. Closed fore-wing cells 6–10. Submarginal cells 2, or 3. Discoidal cells 2. Hind-wings with closed cells. Hind femur without a well defined trochantellus. Hind tibiae with spurs specialised for a cleaning rôle. Hind basitarsi wider than the other segments.
Abdomen. The abdomen with a marked basal constriction; short-waisted. The ‘waist’ simple. Visible abdominal segments 6 (females), or 7 (males). The gaster concolorous, or colour-patterned; when concolorous, black or brown; when patterned, black-and-white, brown-and-white or black, white and brown. Ovipositor of females not visibly protruding; modified as a retractable sting.
Larvae. Larvae legless or the legs vestigial; feeding on material manufactured by the adults.
British representation. Species in Britain 20; only Colletes and Hylaeus, but these represented by nine subgenera.
Classification. Suborder Apocrita; Series Aculeata; Superfamily Apoidea.
Illustrations. • Colletes fodiens (Burrowing Colletes Bee: B. Ent. 85). • Colletes fodiens (detail: B. Ent. 85). • Colletes fodiens (dissections: B. Ent. 85). • Colletes fodiens: B. Ent. 85, legend+text. • Colletes fodiens: B. Ent. 85, text cont.. • Hylaeus annularis (Broad-horned Hylaeus): B. Ent. 373. • Hylaeus annularis: B. Ent. 373, legend+text. • Hylaeus annularis: B. Ent. 373, text cont.. • 4 Colletes species, with Eumenidae (Saunders XXII). COLLETIDAE. 3–4, Colletes succinctus, male (3) and female. 5, Colletes daviesianus, female. 6, Colletes cunicularius, female. 7–11, genital armature of male Colletes species: 7, C. succinctus; 8, C. fodiens; 9, C. similis; 10, C. marginatus; 11, C. daviesianus.
[EUMENIDAE. 1, Symmorphus mutinensis (female). 2, Eumenes coarctatus (female).]
From Saunders (1896). • 6 Hylaeus species (Saunders XXIII). COLLETIDAE. 1, Hylaeus cornutus (male); 2, Hylaeus annularis (male); 3, Hylaeus signatus (female); 4, Hylaeus communis (female); 5, Hylaeus brevicornis (male). 7–15 and 7a-15a, seventh and eighth (a) ventral segments of male Hylaeus species. 7 and 7a, Hylaeus cornutus; 8 and 8a, H. euryscapus spilotus. 9 and 9a, H. communis. 10 and 10a, H. hyalinatus. 11 and 11a, H. confusus. 12 and 12a, H. signatus. 13 and 13a, H. punctulatissima. 14 and 14a, H. pictipes. 15 and 15a, H. brevicornis.
HALICTIDAE. 6, Sphecodes monilicornis (female).
From Saunders, 1896.
We advise against extracting comparative information from the descriptions. This is much more easily achieved using the DELTA data files or the interactive key, which allows access to the character list, illustrations, full and partial descriptions, diagnostic descriptions, differences and similarities between taxa, lists of taxa exhibiting or lacking specified attributes, and distributions of character states within any set of taxa. See also Guidelines for using data taken from Web publications.
Cite this publication as: ‘Watson, L., and Dallwitz, M.J. 2003 onwards. Insects of Britain and Ireland: the families of Hymenoptera. Version: 14th April 2022. delta-intkey.com’.
