Aussie Bee Gallery

Aussie Bee
Photograph Gallery
The Domino Cuckoo Bee (Thyreus lugubris) sipping honey from a feeder during a native bee experiment.
The dramatically coloured polka-dot cuckoo bees sneak into the nests of blue banded bees and teddy bear
bees and lay their eggs inside the nests.
Showcasing the Beauty of Australian Native Bees

© 2007 Australian Native Bee Research Centre, PO Box 74, North Richmond NSW 2754 Australia
Aussie Bee Website: www.aussiebee.com.au
Aussie Bee
Photograph Gallery
• Australia has over 1,500 species of “true blue” native bees.
• Native bees can be black, yellow, red, blue or even metallic green. They
can be fat and furry, or sleek and shiny.
• The smallest bee in the world is a yellow bee, less than 2 mm long, from
Cape York, Queensland.
• Australiaʼs largest bee is a furry, 24 mm, yellow and black carpenter bee
that looks like a bumble bee.
• Most Australian native bees are solitary and raise their young in burrows
in the ground or inside twigs.
• Australia also has 10 species of social native bees which make delicious
honey and do not sting!
• Australiaʼs spectacularly coloured native bees are important pollinators
of our unique wildflowers.
Two blue banded bees, sleeping nose to nose, in a greenhouse tomato experiment. One bee has been marked with
a dab of non-toxic pink paint so that the researchers could follow her activities inside the greenhouse.
Learn More About Native Bees!

Visit the Aussie Bee website for photos and information on native bees.
Information booklets, Australiaʼs first and only field guide and a video on stingless beekeep-
ing are also available from the Aussie Bee website.

Aussie Bee
Photograph Gallery
Blue banded bees (Amegilla) show potential as pollinators of greenhouse tomatoes.

Ideal pollination of tomato flowers requires a bee that can perform ʻbuzz pollinationʼ.
Here a blue banded bee grasps a tomato flower inside a greenhouse in preparation to
buzz pollinating it.

Aussie Bee
Photograph Gallery
Seven blue banded bees (Amegilla) asleep on a stem at dusk

Aussie Bee
Photograph Gallery
A teddy bear bee (Amegilla) taking a rest from her foraging by grasping a stem with her jaws.
Teddy bear bees build tiny solitary nests in burrows in the ground.

Aussie Bee
Photograph Gallery
Like the blue banded bees, teddy bear bees can also gather pollen by buzz pollinating flowers.
Here a teddy bear bee buzz pollinates a Solanum flower.

Aussie Bee
Photograph Gallery
This tiny masked bee is one of the hundreds of solitary bees in the family Colletidae.
They nest in pre-existing holes in timber.
The hole that this masked bee has adopted was used last season by a solitary native wasp
which had sealed the entrance of the hole with cream coloured mud.
Now this masked bee has taken over the vacated wasp nest for her own home.

Aussie Bee
Photograph Gallery
Resin bees (Megachile) also nest in pre-existing holes in timber. This bee is sealing the front entrance of her
nest with resin mixed with some chewed up leaves. Aussie Bee has made many artificial nest sites for these
bees by drilling holes in blocks of timber and the local resin bees use them enthusiastically.

Aussie Bee
Photograph Gallery
These carpenter bees (Xylocopa) are often mistaken for bumblebees.

However, bumblebees come from Europe and elsewhere overseas. There is a feral population
of bumblebees in Tasmania but we do not have any bumblebees on the Australian mainland.
Carpenter bees cut burrows for their nests in soft timber such as dead mango boughs.

Aussie Bee
Photograph Gallery
This is a group of worker bees on the brood comb of an Austroplebeia australis stingless bee nest.
They are surrounding their queen bee with her large abdomen swollen with eggs.
Austroplebeia bees do not enclose their brood chamber with as many resinous layers as the Trigona bees do.
So it is easier to observe the fascinating behaviour of the queen as she lays her eggs.

Aussie Bee
Photograph Gallery
Trigona carbonaria stingless bees build an elegant spiral brood comb.

In this species, the worker bees build new cells on the brood comb in large batches. When all the cells are
finished the queen quickly moves around and lays an egg in each cell.
The bases of over 20 new brood cells, being built on the edges of the combs, can be seen in this photograph.


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Aussie Bee

Showcasing the Beauty of Australian Native Bees

Learn More About Native Bees!

Showcasing the Beauty of Australian Native Bees

Blue banded bees (Amegilla) show potential as pollinators of greenhouse tomatoes.

Showcasing the Beauty of Australian Native Bees

Seven blue banded bees (Amegilla) asleep on a stem at dusk

Showcasing the Beauty of Australian Native Bees

Showcasing the Beauty of Australian Native Bees

Showcasing the Beauty of Australian Native Bees

Showcasing the Beauty of Australian Native Bees

Showcasing the Beauty of Australian Native Bees

These carpenter bees (Xylocopa) are often mistaken for bumblebees.

Showcasing the Beauty of Australian Native Bees

Showcasing the Beauty of Australian Native Bees

Trigona carbonaria stingless bees build an elegant spiral brood comb.

Showcasing the Beauty of Australian Native Bees

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