Subject: Possible Cuckoo Leafcutter bee?
Geographic location of the bug: Galveston, Tx
Date: 03/11/2019
Time: 03:45 PM EDT
Your letter to the bugman: Hello,
I’m just now learning about native bees and am wondering if this bug that I took a picture of in October of 2018 could be a Slosson’s Sand-dwelling Cuckoo Leafcutter Bee. The insect was hanging out in my garden although I can’t remember the name of the plant I saw it on.
Can you help me out and let me know if it is a native bee?
Thanks Chris
How you want your letter signed: Chris
Dear Chris,
This is not a native Bee. It is a native Potter or Mason Wasp in the subfamily Eumeninae, the Red-marked Pachodynerus, Pachodynerus erynnis, which we identified on BugGuide. According to BugGuide: “Adults are nectar feeders and hunt caterpillars as food for larvae” and “Solitary. A parent wasp builds mud cells or uses empty cells of other mud-building wasp species, provisioning the nest with caterpillars. One larva per cell.”