Family: Megachilidae
Subfamily: Megachilinae
Tribe: Osmiini
Genus: Hofferia Tkalců, 1984
Subgenera: none
Common name: none
Hofferia are black to reddish-black, slender, and elongate bees with apical bands of hair on their terga. They range in body length from 8.5–15 mm (Michener 2007).
Hofferia contains 2 species worldwide (Michener 2007); none are known to occur in the U.S. or Canada.
(modified from Michener 2007)
Hofferia may be confused with Chelostoma and Protosmia due to their similar elongate builds and external characteristics, but they can be distinguished by the combination of characters above (Michener 2007).
There are no known invasives.
Hofferia specializes on Carduoideae (Asteraceae) (Müller and Trunz 2014).
Hofferia are solitary nesting bees, but little is known about their nesting habits. Hofferia schmiedeknechti builds nests in wood-boring beetle excavations in dead wood (Müller and Trunz 2014). Thin-cell partitions are made from plant resin (Rozen and Praz 2016). A nest plug is made from resin mixed with small pebbles (Müller and Trunz 2014; Rozen and Praz 2016).
Hofferia ranges throughout the Mediterranean from Morocco, Algeria, Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, and Greece (Michener 2007).
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