[2] These bees are widespread in most of Europe and Asia from Britain to China and Japan,[3] the Near East and in North Africa.

[5] These bees commonly inhabit gardens, open woodland, and coastal sites.

Males are also distinguished from females by having long hairs on its mid tarsi and the integument of the lower face yellow or cream coloured, rather than black.

[3] The long tufts of black hairs on the tarsi (hence the Latin word plumipes) are used as a visual signal during mating.

The females usually make nests in clay slopes and steep walls of mud, where they excavate cells, which they fill with pollen and nectar (as food for the larvae), laying a single egg on each pollen mass.