Clover Melitta vs Red Bartsia Bee

Melitta leporina compared with Melitta tricincta

Taxonomic Classification

Rank	Clover Melitta	Red Bartsia Bee
Kingdom same	Animalia (Animals)	Animalia (Animals)
Phylum same	Arthropoda (Arthropods)	Arthropoda (Arthropods)
Class same	Insecta (Insects)	Insecta (Insects)
Order same	Hymenoptera (Ants, Bees & Wasps)	Hymenoptera (Ants, Bees & Wasps)
Family same	Melittidae	Melittidae
Genus same	Melitta	Melitta
Species	Melitta leporina	Melitta tricincta

Evolutionary Relationship

Clover Melitta and Red Bartsia Bee share a common ancestor at the Genus level: Melitta.

Conservation Status

Clover Melitta

NT — Near Threatened

Red Bartsia Bee

NT — Near Threatened

Physical Characteristics

Attribute	Clover Melitta	Red Bartsia Bee
Diet	—	—
Average Lifespan	—	—
Average Length	—	—
Average Weight	—	—

Habitat & Geographic Range

Clover Melitta

Habitat

Typically found in virtually all terrestrial and freshwater habitats.

Range

Distributed across Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg, Norway, and Sweden. Listed as Near Threatened, this species requires ongoing monitoring to prevent population decline.

Red Bartsia Bee

Habitat

Typically found in virtually all terrestrial and freshwater habitats.

Range

Distributed across Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg, and Sweden. Listed as Near Threatened, this species requires ongoing monitoring to prevent population decline.

Clover Melitta

The clover Melitta (Melitta leporina) is a solitary bee in the family Melittidae, order Hymenoptera, with a distribution centered on temperate Europe including Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg, Norway, and Sweden. Unlike social bees, Melitta species are ground-nesting solitary bees in which each female constructs and provisions her own nest independently. M. leporina is oligolectic — highly specialized in its pollen collection — gathering pollen almost exclusively from leguminous plants, particularly clovers (Trifolium), alfalfa (Medicago sativa), and related species in the family Fabaceae. This specialization makes the bee closely dependent on the availability of flowering legume patches within foraging distance of nesting sites. Nest sites are in bare or sparsely vegetated sandy or loamy soils, often in sunny, sheltered locations such as road embankments, field margins, and sandy grasslands. Adults fly from midsummer through early autumn in a single annual generation. M. leporina is classified as Near Threatened on the IUCN Red List, reflecting declining populations across much of its European range due to agricultural intensification, loss of flower-rich grasslands, reduction in diverse legume cultivation, and loss of suitable open nesting habitat. Conservation of M. leporina depends on maintaining semi-natural grassland habitats with diverse flowering legumes and accessible sandy soils for nesting, along with reduction of pesticide use that harms adult foraging and larval survival.

Shared Countries

Both species can be found in 4 countries:

🇧🇪 Belgium 🇩🇰 Denmark 🇱🇺 Luxembourg 🇸🇪 Sweden