Animal Species:Common Blue-banded Bee
A regular visitor to Sydney gardens is the Common Blue-banded Bee.
Blue-banded Bee specimen, Amegilla sp
© Australian Museum
Identification
The Common Blue-banded Bee stands out because of the blue bands across its black abdomen and because of its darting, hovering flight pattern.
Size range
1.2 cm
Distribution
The Common Blue-banded Bee is found throughout most of Australia but is not known in Tasmania or the Northern Territory.
Habitat
The Common Blue-banded Bee lives in urban areas, forests and woodlands, and heath.
Other behaviours and adaptations
It was thought that these bees only visited blue and purple flowers. This is not true, but they do seem to like lavender and are attracted to blue objects, including clothing.
Life cycle
The Common Blue-banded Bee builds a solitary nest, but often close to one another. It prefers soft sandstone to burrow in, and areas of this type of rock can become riddled with bee tunnels. It also likes mud-brick houses and often burrows into the mortar in old buildings. Cells at the end of the tunnel contain an egg with a pollen/nectar mixture for the emerging larva.
Classification
- Species:
- cingulata
- Genus:
- Amegilla
- Subfamily:
- Apinae
- Family:
- Apidae
- Superfamily:
- Apoidea
- Suborder:
- Apocrita
- Order:
- Hymenoptera
- Class:
- Insecta
- Subphylum:
- Uniramia
- Phylum:
- Arthopoda
- Kingdom:
- Animalia
Last Updated:
Tags bees, insects, arthropods, invertebrates, identification, wildlife of sydney,
10 comments
Hi Yvonne,
They would have been male bees which spend the night aggregated on the stems of plants. They appear to "sleep" with their mandibles clamped onto the stem. If the weather is overcast or cool they may remain like that for most of the day. Only the males do this, females spend the night in their nest. The reasons for males aggregating like this is not clear.
Dear Gilles,
This is not Amegilla cingulata, as this species does not occur in China. It is however in the same group of Amegilla (subgenus Zonamegilla), but we do not have the expertise in Chinese bees to be able to say more.
Hi Richard. As with many Australian insects, common names often refer to a group of similar looking, or sometimes closely related insects rather than one species, and as such are really pretty much useless when applied at the species level, which is why we prefer to use scientific names. There are at least 59 described species of Amegilla, with quite a few of these with the blue and black banding seen in A. cingulata, so the common name "blue-banded bee" has probably been applied to a few of these Amegilla species, just as the "teddy bear bee" name has been applied to different species of the hairy orange species of Amegilla. The differences used to separate many of these species are extremely subtle, and in some cases it may only be possible to confidently identify species by using DNA analysis. There is a review of the blue-banded Amegilla species in press at the moment which will hopefully sort out some of these problems.
It doesn't seem as if there is much relationship between the roosting sites of males, where males patrol for females for mating purposes, and where the females nest. Males seem to look for females which are foraging on flowers when attempting to mate. The flight range for blue-banded bees may be as much as 2 km, so roosting sites could be a long way away from where the females nest. There is obviously potential for a keen student to attempt a mark/recapture study to try and determine some of these details.