Native Bee trying to mate with honeybee in hive

[Don Shump]

 Video seems to show a native bee trying to mate with a honey bee worker in the hive.  Anyone ever seen this behavior?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Beekeeping/comments/1je9tah/comment/mijtpng/?context=3

According to the original poster this is from South Eastern PA where we've been seeing a lot of  Colletes the last few days. 

Don

[Carrie McLaughlin]

I wonder if the colletes have discovered a novel way to nectar-rob and/or glean pollen. Ordinarily the honey bees would drive off an intruder, but arriving on the back of another honey bee seems to be offering a camouflage of sorts. A Trojan horse! Super interesting! 

Carrie McLaughlin

Texas Pollinator PowWow

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[Douglas Yanega]

On 3/18/25 7:27 PM, Don Shump wrote:
>  Video seems to show a native bee trying to mate with a honey bee
> worker in the hive.  Anyone ever seen this behavior?

It shows a male Andrena mating with a female Andrena, while sitting on
an exposed comb. Look carefully at the abdomen of the female, during the
brief glimpses.

Peace,

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Doug Yanega Dept. of Entomology Entomology Research Museum
Univ. of California, Riverside, CA 92521-0314 voicemail:951-827-8704
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is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82

[Michelle Orcutt]

Respectfully disagree.

In the video, I see a male Andrena (you can see his white moustache, no light hair bands) on a female honey bee with the same markings as the rest of the colony. The OP said she saw multiple males on female honey bees, entering the hive. The still photo in the comments is of a Colletes pair. 

I would expect that the Andrena males' actions were due to a hormonal short-circuit rather than any concerted ploy to nectar-rob or glean pollen. Female Andrena probably haven't emerged yet and the coterie of males have a primary goal.

Happy Spring!

Michelle

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[Douglas Yanega]

On 3/19/25 1:59 PM, Michelle Orcutt wrote:

Respectfully disagree.

In the video, I see a male Andrena (you can see his white moustache, no light hair bands) on a female honey bee with the same markings as the rest of the colony. The OP said she saw multiple males on female honey bees, entering the hive. The still photo in the comments is of a Colletes pair. 

I would expect that the Andrena males' actions were due to a hormonal short-circuit rather than any concerted ploy to nectar-rob or glean pollen. Female Andrena probably haven't emerged yet and the coterie of males have a primary goal.

Happy Spring!

Michelle

On Wed, Mar 19, 2025 at 9:35 AM Douglas Yanega <dya...@gmail.com> wrote:

On 3/18/25 7:27 PM, Don Shump wrote:
>  Video seems to show a native bee trying to mate with a honey bee
> worker in the hive.  Anyone ever seen this behavior?

It shows a male Andrena mating with a female Andrena, while sitting on
an exposed comb. Look carefully at the abdomen of the female, during the
brief glimpses.

And I'll respectfully retract my comment; I was not zoomed in for my first viewing, nor did I freeze the video to doublecheck. Zooming in and freezing the mage, yes, he's mounted a honeybee. Pretty bizarre.

[Joel Gardner]

I've seen a male Andrena attempting to mate with a bumble bee queen at least 5x his size... I have a picture of it somewhere, if anyone is interested.  They sure are randy little guys and not choosy at all, though this level of interspecies mating (interfamily, even) seems to be rare.

Could possibly explain why Andrena taxonomy is so difficult.

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[Michelle Orcutt]

Found a couple of iNat observations with Bombus grisocollis queens as Andrena males' would-be paramours

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/204339023

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/112307709

In any case, better than a ball of blister beetle triungulins!

This study involved Habropoda, but Andrena males can be marks too.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.0603901103

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[John Plant]

It’s possible that the Colletes females have not appeared yet, and the males are so eager to mate that they get fooled by innocent honeybees. Once the males know the real thing their behavior should change. Just an idea.

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