I found this for me unknown insect in my bee hotel photo backlog, and suspected it was a digger wasp species. Which it isn’t… but before I arrived at that conclusion I had already spend a full afternoon wrestling with a diggerwasp key which did not produce correct results… duh! 😂 So brute-force Google it is and voilà … a Masked bee, the Common Yellow Face Bee (Hylaeus communis)[1, 2].
Common Yellow Face Bee ♀︎
(Hylaeus communis)
She nests in bee hotels. This species is quit similar to Hyaline spatulate-masked bee (Hylaeus hyalinatus) but that species has,among other characteristics, longer cheeks (the line starting from the lower eye to the jaw)1.
Common Yellow Face Bee ♀︎
(Hylaeus communis)
Literature
1 Peeters, T.M.J., H. Nieuwenhuijsen, J. Smit, F. van der Meer, I.P. Raemakers, W.R.B. Heitmans, C. van Achterberg, M. Kwak, A.J. Loonstra, J. de Rond, M. Roos & M. Reemer 2012. De Nederlands bijen (Hymennoptera: Apidae s.l.). - Natuur van Nederland 11, Naturalis Biodiversity Center & European Invertebrate Survey - Nederland, Leiden.2 Hans Nieuwenhuijsen, Ivo Raemakers, "Tabel voor de bijen van het genus Hylaeus in Nederland", Nieuwsbrief Sectie Hymenoptera NEV – nr. 29, april 2009
