Sphecodes albilabris

With a body length of 11 to 15 mm, it is by some margin the largest Sphecodes blood bee in Britain.

Among British blood bees it is the only one whose red markings reach the tip of the abdomen.

In females the wings are strongly smoky, almost black.

It occurs in southern and central Europe, reaching Denmark, Estonia, southern Finland and Sweden in the north, and its range extends into Asia.

A 2012 review listed it as absent from the British Isles, but it was discovered in Britain in 2020 at Layham in Suffolk.

It is a cuckoo bee whose main host is the spring mining bee Colletes cunicularius.

There is one generation a year: adults emerge in July and mate, then the females find shelter and overwinter.

In Britain females are on the wing from March to August and males from July to October.

Researchers think overwintered females very likely live a long time and still fly in early summer, when their Colletes host is not yet available, which may explain records at other hosts.

Old, worn females have been seen entering nests of the bee Melitturga clavicornis, and its larvae were dug out of such a nest and described in 1965.

It lives in the same places as its host: sandy areas with plenty of sallows and willows.

Like other Sphecodes blood bees, it is a nest cleptoparasite that visits flowers only for nectar and does not collect pollen.

In Britain it has been seen on daisy-family flowers such as hemp agrimony, creeping thistle and goldenrods, and on sea hollies.

The Swiss Red List of 2024 classes it as not threatened (Least Concern); in Britain it is too recently discovered to have been given a rarity status.