Eucera bees play a crucial role in pollinating a wide range of flowering plants.
They are solitary bees, meaning that each female builds and provisions her own nest without forming social colonies like honeybees.
Female Eucera bees construct their nests in the ground, typically in well-drained, sandy soils.
They lay their eggs within the nest and provide a food supply for their offspring by collecting pollen and nectar from flowers.
They are generalist pollinators, meaning they visit a wide variety of flowers, but some species show preferences for specific plants or families, such as legumes or sunflowers.As in most members of the tribe Eucerini, the antennae of males are very long.
[4] When emerging from nests, an immature Eucera nigrilabris male will be somewhat red in color and a bit sluggish.
[2][7] Research shows that the Eucera complex originated in the Nearctic region in the late Oligocene and dispersed twice.
[1] However, six genera have recently been added to the genus Eucera as new subgenera: Tetralonia, Peponapis, Syntrichalonia, Cemolobus, Xenoglossodes and Xenoglossa.
For nesting, Eucera nigrilabris prefers soil of lower sodicity and salinity that has low calcium carbonate concentrations.
[5] Eucera palaestinae use their Dufour's gland to secrete a mixture of hydrocarbons, methyl esters, and unsaturated fatty acids which provide the nest with an odor.
[9] Eucera kullenbergi is known to fall victim to sexual deception by Ophrys leochroma flowers that mimic the sex pheromones of female bees.
Research suggests that Eucera use a combination of reward-based-patch-leaving rule and scent marking strategy to avoid returning to previously visited sites.
[4] Eucera cinerea has specialized thick bristles that curve and are used for foraging for pollen within flowers that have hidden anthers.