Unidentified Wasp?

[jezlee]

Hello all .... anybody have any ideas on this one? I found it sunning it self on a Viburnum leaf recently in my back garden in Wolverhampton ...

[Laurence Clemons]

It is a cuckoo bee Nomada sp., possibly Nomada panzeri.

[jezlee]

Thanks, Laurence! Tell me, is there one thing, above all others, that tells you this is a bee and not a wasp? Or is it a combination of details ....

[Laurence Clemons]

The wings are the first things to look at - arrangement of veins and number of cells. In social wasps the wings are folded at rest but in solitary wasps and, in this case, your cuckoo bee they are laid flat over the abdomen.

[jezlee]

Thanks, Laurence - do the antennae differ from bees to wasps?

[eucera]

This could be N. panzeri... but I would tend to favour the similar, but somewhat larger and much commoner N. flava. These are tricky to separate, and you need to look at the colour of the setae on the labrum, clypeus, lower margin of mid-femur and outer surface of hind tibia. In N. flava these are yellowish, and in N. panzeri they are black

Cheers, Stuart