Count the bands
Males have five blue bands and females have four.
Tropical north · Bees, wasps and ants
Blue-banded bee
Amegilla cingulata
A stout bee with a golden-brown furry chest and a black abdomen ringed with bands of pale, shining blue.
- Size
- About 11mm long
- Look for it
- October to December, then January to March
- Where
- Gardens, woodland and forest edges across much of Australia
Zips after you and hovers. Move your pointer and see.
When to look
Blue-banded bee
Good to know
Six things about the blue-banded bee
It head-bangs
It grips a flower and shakes it by banging its head hundreds of times a second, which makes the pollen pour out.
Good for tomatoes
Tomato flowers only release their pollen when shaken. Growers in Australia are trying this bee in greenhouses.
It lives alone
There is no hive and no honey. Each female digs her own burrow in soft earth, clay or old mortar.
It sleeps by its jaws
Males spend the night clamped to a grass stem by their jaws, legs tucked up, often several in a row.
A darting flier
It flies in quick dashes between flowers and hovers in front of each one.
The real thing
Photos of the blue-banded bee
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Photos are from Wikimedia Commons, used under the free licences shown. They have been resized, and cropped where they appear in link previews.
How to spot one
Watch blue and purple flowers, such as lavender and salvia, on a warm day. Listen for a short, loud buzz as it lands.
How to help
Leave a patch of bare earth or a bank of clay in the garden. Mud-brick bee blocks are easy to make and females move in.