There is one kind of Australian bee with a queen, though, and honey, too. Their nests are also invisible to us, because we expect bees to live in hives, but so many of the Australian bees are solitary, making their own nests, concerning themselves with their own eggs, not those of a queen. Those bees are black and yellow, not striped, and they make their homes in crevices. Caterpillars, bugs? No leaf-cutter bees need the soft leaves to cradle their eggs, and these bees cut out little circles or ovals for their nests. If we can’t see the bees, can we see what they leave behind? If you have roses, you might have noticed some of the leaves with quite perfect circles cut out of them. Some only try to trick other bees, like the neon cuckoo bee, which sneakily lays its eggs in the nest of blue-banded bees, allowing its larvae to hatch first and eat up the little packets of nectar and pollen which the more thoughtful blue-banded bees left as food for its own grubs. Some bees really do use camouflage, like the wasp mimic bee, discovered on Captain Cook’s voyage. The masked bee, on the other hand, may be trying to disguise itself, as it wears a superhero mask of bright yellow over its dark face. There’s the teddy bear bee, for example, a fat, fluffy golden bee which hums as it moves from flower to flower. Not just a couple of different species-but more than 1500!Ĭan a thousand bees be invisible? A thousand, thousand bees? They’re small, to be sure, although some native bees are far bigger than honeybees. Maybe that’s why we have so many kinds of bees. Bees are essential for our plants, especially in Australia, because most of our plants are pollinated by bees, not the wind. If that doesn’t happen, the flower doesn’t form a fruit, with seeds inside. It’s because they have a special talent-they can spread pollen from plant to plant, from flower to flower. But the blue-banded bees seem invisible.Īre they unnoticeable because they don’t make honey? But the reason all bees are special is not because of honey at all. We notice honeybees-we recognise their orange stripes, their buzz. ![]() Strangely, although most gardens in mainland Australia will have blue-banded bees flying around them, few people notice these bees. The female bees sleep apart from the males in their separate nests, small burrows they’ve made in the side of a riverbank. Sometimes I see the male bees roosting at night on a blade of grass, changing places, flapping to balance, then settling to sleep. Their stripes are sometimes white, sometimes a vibrant, electric blue and they love the blue flowers, the lavender plants and the blue Dianella. They have a loud, vibrating buzz, louder than any honeybee, and they hover like helicopters before diving down to land on a flower. BLUE-BANDED BEES fly around The Garden, shaking the flowers to release pollen.
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