More Information on
Blue Banded Bees (Amegilla)

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Blue banded bees are one of our most beautiful Australian native bees. They are about 11 mm long and have bands of metallic blue fur across their black abdomens.

Blue banded bees are solitary bees. This means that each female bee mates and then builds a solitary nest by herself. She builds her nest in a shallow burrow in clay soil or sometimes in mudbricks. Many blue banded bees may build their nest burrows in the same spot, close to one another, like neighbouring houses in a village.

Blue banded bees can perform a special type of pollination called 'buzz pollination'. Some flowers hide their pollen inside tiny capsules. A blue banded bee can grasp a flower like this and shiver her flight muscles, causing the pollen to shoot out of the capsule. She can then collect the pollen for her nest and carry it from flower to flower, pollinating the flowers. Quite a few of our native Australian flowers require buzz pollination eg Hibbertia, Senna.

Tomato flowers are also pollinated better when visited by a buzz pollinating bee. Researchers at the University of Adelaide are developing native blue banded bees for greenhouse tomato pollination. It would be much better for our environment to use our native blue banded bees for this purpose rather than introducing European bumblebees to Australia!

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Here a full list of the other information on blue banded bees found on the Aussie Bee website:

Where are blue banded bees found in Australia?

Blue banded bee nests and life cycle

Blue banded bee nests

Use as greenhouse tomato pollinators - part 1

Use as greenhouse tomato pollinators - part 2

Aussie Bee Online - Article 2

Aussie Bee Online - Article 7

Aussie Bee Online - Article 8

Aussie Bee Online - Article 9

Aussie Bee Online - Article 10

Blue banded bee photos

Blue banded bee video 1

Blue banded bee video 2

Blue banded bee video 3

For more photos and full articles on this bee in Aussie Bee Bulletin, click here