European wool carder bee

(Anthidium manicatum)

Conservation Status
IUCN Red List

LC - Least Concern

NatureServe

NNA - Not applicable

SNA - Not applicable

Minnesota

not listed

 
European wool carder bee
Photo by Babette Kis
 
Description

European wool carder bee is an exotic, medium sized, wasp-like bee. It is native to Europe, Asia, and North Africa. It was first discovered in North America in Ithaca, New York in 1963. Some sources say that it was purposefully introduced to pollinate alfalfa. According to research entomologist Tom Zavortink of the Bohart Museum that is not true. It was accidentally “introduced into New York state, presumably from Europe, before 1963.” It has since spread across the United States and southern Canada. In the U.S. it is most common in the northeast, in the Upper Midwest, and on the West Coast. It is absent from the Great Plains and the south. It was first discovered in Minnesota in 2009.

Adults are active from June through early October in Minnesota. They are found in a variety of habitats, including meadows, fields, open deciduous woodlands, gardens, and disturbed areas. They are generalist feeders, visiting flowers from many plant families.

Adult females are 716 to ½ (11 to 13 mm) in length. Males are larger, 916 to (14 to 17 mm) in length. The body is robust and black with yellow, wasp-like markings.

On the female, the head is black and is covered with short, yellowish-brown hairs. There is a yellow mark on the top of the head (vertex) behind each compound eye. The plate on the face above the upper lip (clypeus) has a large yellow blotch on the lower half with a lobe on each side that extents upward. There is a yellow mark on each side of the face bordering the clypeus and the compound eye that ends above at the antennae base. The antennae are entirely black. A single line-like groove extends downward from the base of each antenna (subantennal suture). The subantennal sutures are very straight, not curved. They rise on the outer margin of each antennae base and extend to the top of the clypeus. The jaws (mandibles) are mostly yellow, black just at the tip, and they have many teeth.

The exoskeletal plates on the upper side of the thorax, from front to rear, are the pronotum, scutum, scutellum, and metanotum. The side lobes of the pronotum are yellow. The scutum is black and is covered with erect, yellowish-brown hairs. There is a long, bold, yellow stripe on each lateral margin. The small plates covering the wing bases (tegulae) are black with a small yellow spot. There is a small triangular area (axilla) adjacent to each front corner of the scutellum. The axillae are yellow.

Abdominal segments (tergites) 1 through 6 (T1 to T6) have a yellow band on each side. The bands on T1 are widely separated from each other in the middle, but they get progressively closer together approaching the end of the abdomen. On the underside of each abdominal segment there is a band of yellowish-brown, pollen-collecting hairs (scopa).

The wings are tinted smoky brown. The veins are brownish black. The opaque cell (stigma) on the leading edge (costal margin) is very short.

The legs are mostly yellow and black. The third leg segment (femur) of each leg is reddish orange. The fourth leg segment (tibia) is black with a broad yellow stripe on the upper surface.

On the male, the clypeus is almost entirely yellow, black just at the base. The yellow mark on the scutum is very small. The bands on the abdomen are often interrupted, separated into spots, or reduced to a single spot at the margin. The abdomen has 7 segments. There is a dense tuft of yellowish-brown hairs on each side of T1 through T4. On T6 there is a spine on each side. On T7 there is a spine on each side and another in the middle. There are no scopa on the underside of the abdomen. On each leg, the femur is black and there is a fringe of long white hairs on the underside of the femur and the tibia.

 

Size

Female total length: 716 to ½ (11 to 13 mm)

Male total length: 916 to (14 to 17 mm)

 

Similar Species

 
Habitat

A variety of habitats, including meadows, fields, open deciduous woodlands, gardens, and disturbed areas.

Biology

Season

June through October

 

Behavior

The male is aggressively territorial. It will attack and drive off or kill any insect pollinator that enters its territory and is not a female European wool carder bee.

The female builds a nest in a preexisting cavity in wood or a hollow stem. She lines her nest with hairs that she scrapes (“cards”) from the leaves of a woolly plant like common mullein.

 

Life Cycle

 

 

Larva Food

 

 

Adult Food

 

Distribution

Distribution Map

 

Sources

4, 24, 27, 29, 30, 82, 83.

Portman Z M, Gardner J, Lane I G, Gerjets N, Petersen J D, Ascher J S, Arduser M, Evans E C, Boyd C, Thomson R, Cariveau D P, plazi (2023). A checklist of the bees (Hymenoptera: Apoidea) of Minnesota. Plazi.org taxonomic treatments database. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/qt7spn.

12/15/2024    
     

Occurrence

 

Taxonomy

Order

Hymenoptera (ants, bees, wasps, and sawflies)

Suborder

Apocrita (narrow-waisted wasps, ants, and bees)

Infraorder

Aculeata (ants, bees, and stinging wasps)

Superfamily

Apoidea (bees and apoid wasps)

Epifamily

Anthophila (bees)

Family

Megachilidae (mason, leafcutter, carder, and resin bees)

Subfamily

Megachilinae

Tribe

Anthidiini

Genus

Anthidium (wool carder bees)

Subgenus

Anthidium

   

Subordinate Taxa

European wool carder bee (Anthidium manicatum ssp. manicatum)

wool carder bee (Anthidium manicatum ssp. barbarum)

wool carder bee (Anthidium manicatum ssp. gribodoi)

wool carder bee (Anthidium manicatum ssp. hissaricum)

   

Synonyms

Anthidium barbarum

Anthidium maculatum

Anthidium manicatum ssp. cyrenaica

Anthidium manicatum ssp. fasciatum

Anthidium manicatum ssp. luteus

Anthidium manicatum ssp. nasicolle

Anthidium manicatum ssp. nigrithorax

Anthidium manicatum ssp. subcrenulata

Anthidium marginatum

Anthidium obtusatum

Anthidium productum

Anthidium subcrenulatum

Apis amoenita

Apis fulvipes

Apis maculata

Apis manicata

Apis modesta

Apis pervigil

Apis uncata

   

Common Names

European wool carder bee (U.S.A.)

wool carder bee (UK)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Glossary

Clypeus

On insects, a hardened plate on the face above the upper lip (labrum).

 

Costal margin

The leading edge of the forewing of insects.

 

Femur

On insects and arachnids, the third, largest, most robust segment of the leg, coming immediately before the tibia. On humans, the thigh bone.

 

Scopa

A brush-like tuft of hairs on the legs or underside of the abdomen of a bee used to collect pollen.

 

Scutum

The forward (anterior) portion of the middle segment of the thorax (mesonotum) in insects and some arachnids.

 

Stigma

In plants, the portion of the female part of the flower that is receptive to pollen. In Lepidoptera, an area of specialized scent scales on the forewing of some skippers, hairstreaks, and moths. In other insects, a thickened, dark, or opaque cell on the leading edge of the wing.

 

Tergite

The upper (dorsal), hardened plate on a segment of the thorax or abdomen of an arthropod or myriapod.

 

Tibia

The fourth segment of an insect leg, after the femur and before the tarsus (foot). The fifth segment of a spider leg or palp.

 

Vertex

The upper surface of an insect’s head.

 

 

 

 

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Babette Kis

European wool-carder bee

Anthidium manicatum, European wool-carder bee, on motherwort flowers. Photographed on June 16, 2024 at Barnes Prairie, Racine Co., WI.

European wool carder bee   European wool carder bee
     
European wool carder bee    
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Anthidium manicatum
Sam Droege

Anthidium manicatum

 

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Other Videos

The Common Woolcarder Bee (Anthidium manicatum)
Ecolversity

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Video on characteristic traits, nesting biology and mating behavior of the Common Wool Carder Bee (Anthidium manicatum)

EUROPEAN WOOLCARDER BEE, Anthidium manicatum , foraging
Rob Curtis

About

Mar 1, 2020

EUROPEAN WOOLCARDER BEE, Anthidium manicatum , foraging. Chicago. 8/27/2019

Wool Carder Bees Anthidium manicatum
David Element

About

Jul 5, 2015

Wool Carder Bees Anthidium manicatum are shown feeding and grooming. The larger males are fiercely territorial and they will see off any rivals whilst searching for prospective mates.

Wool Carder Bee Anthidium manicatum Buckfastleigh, Devon 1July 2022
John Walters

About

Feb 20, 2023

Male Wool Carder Bees Anthidium manicatum have territories around a patch of flowers, in this case Lambs Ear Stachys lanata. They are armed with thick spikes on their tails and will use these to attack any other bees that come to the flowers including large bumblebees. The only bees allowed are the female Wool Carders. The male mates with any females that enter his territory, they are guaranteed a supply of nectar and pollen that he has defended. The females also collect the woolly hairs from the leaves to construct their nests.

 

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Babette Kis
6/16/2024

Location: Barnes Prairie, Racine Co., WI

Anthidium manicatum, European wool-carder bee, on motherwort flowers. Photographed on June 16, 2024 at Barnes Prairie, Racine Co., WI.

European wool carder bee
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Created: 12/15/2024

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