#3560 · 🐝 bees, wasps & ants
Early Cellophane Bee
🇳🇱 Grote zijdebij ·Colletes cunicularius
🐝 Bees, wasps & ants 📍 in the Netherlands
8 photos from iNaturalist (Creative Commons) · credits & licences
what is it?
Colletes cunicularis , the vernal colletes or Spring mining bee , is a species of solitary bee from the family Colletidae which is widespread in the Palearctic from Britain to the Pacific Ocean which nests in areas of open, sandy soil.
base stats
Bars compare against all animals on log scales: up to 300,000 Dutch and 600,000 worldwide sightings (the most-seen species), 150 t (blue whale), 30 m and 400 years (Greenland shark).
fun facts
- Spotted 75 times in the Netherlands on iNaturalist.
- 4,942 observations worldwide on iNaturalist.
- Scientifically named in 1761 (265 years ago).
fact sheet
- English
- Early Cellophane Bee
- Nederlands
- Grote zijdebij
- scientific name
- Colletes cunicularius
- class
- Insecta
- order
- Hymenoptera
- family
- Colletidae
- sightings in NL
- 75
- sightings in Europe
- 3,515
- sightings worldwide
- 4,942
- GBIF records in NL
- 7,787
- weight
- —
- length
- —
- lifespan
- —
- named
- 1761
relatives· Colletidae
Sources: iNaturalist taxon 484487, Wikidata Q1472116, GBIF 1348691, Wikipedia (EN), Wikipedia (NL). Intro text from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).Updated 2026-10-24.