Natures wonders: cuckoo bees invade bee hives (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, May 09, 2018, 00:13 (2389 days ago) @ David Turell

They use other bees work to lives their own lives:

https://phys.org/news/2018-05-species-stealthy-cuckoo-bees.html

Cuckoo bees sneakily lay their eggs in the nests of other bee species, after which their newly hatched prodigies kill the host egg or larva, and then feed on the stored pollen. The host, a solitary bee, never knows anything is awry. Nine new species of these clandestine bees have been found hiding in collections and museums across North America by York University PhD Candidate Thomas Onuferko, as well as another six unpublished in a decades old academic thesis.

More closely resembling wasps in appearance, cuckoo bees lack the typical fuzzy look usually attributed to bees as they don't need those hairs to collect pollen for their young. Although not much is known about them, cuckoo bees are named after cuckoo birds which exhibit the same cleptoparasitic behaviour.

Comment: Did they lose their fuzz before or after they discovered this way of parasitism? There aare many ways to earn a living.