Blue-banded Bee

This active and distinctive bee is one of the blue-banded bees, probably Amegilla asserta, photographed in my parents garden. Typically, it is visiting lantana, one of its favourite flowers.

There are fourteen species of blue-banded bee species in Australia (and seven in France) and they are highly regarded as efficient pollinators. A. asserta occurs all up and down the east of Australia, from the temperate south to the tropical north, but excluding the inland arid zone. It looks very like the most well known and striking looking of the blue-banded bees, A. cingulata, and is often mistaken for it. Where my parents live blue-banded bees will be active all year round.

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