One of my favourite insects.........the incredible Bee-fly.

The incredible Bee-fly

Bee-flies are a Family of flies (Bombyliidae) that have stout, furry bodies. 

Most species of bee-fly have a long, thin proboscis extending in front of the body. Bee-flies are true flies and belong in the sub-order Brachycera but their furry appearance makes them look a little like bumblebees and this is how they get their name. Unlike bees, which have four wings, bee-flies have only two that they hold out at an acute angle when they settle, like a tiny delta-wing aircraft. Bee-flies are perfectly harmless.

Adult bee-flies measure around 1 cm in length and feed on nectar, using their long proboscis to sip nectar from flowering plants whilst hovering in front of the flower - rather like a humming bird. Bee-flies are very agile and often hover near flowers before darting quickly away and then returning to hover again.

These amazing little insects resemble Hummingbirds in the way that they hover in front of flowers
whilst using a long proboscis to feed on the pollen.

Male and Female Bee-fly feeding whilst still in flight.

For such cute, fluffy insects, bee-flies have a rather gruesome way of life! Bee-flies lay their eggs into the nests of solitary mining bees. To do this, the adult females collect dust or sand at the tip of their abdomen, using it to coat their eggs, which is thought to provide camouflage and perhaps also add weight to them. 

Why do they want them to be heavier? Well, the female next proceeds to find areas of ground where solitary bees have made nest-burrows, hovering over the burrows to flick her egss into them. The added weight from the sand or dust may make it easier to flick the tiny eggs through the air into the burrows. 

The bee-fly's larva hatches, crawls further into the bee burrows and waits for the bee's own larva to grow to almost full-size, at which point the bee-fly larva attacks the bee larva, feeding on its body fluids and eventually killing it.

A rare shot of a Bee-fly resting on the ground.

In flight. - Note just the single pair of wings, unlike Bees, which have two pairs.

Bee-flies can be very difficult to photograph, as they seldom hover still for any length of time before darting off at incredible speed in any direction. However, they do have a tendency to continuously return to the same area, so patience is the order of the day.

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