More dashes than dots, Megachile and her cuckoos

As I commented last time, the leafcutters, Megachile chrysopyga, are swarming to the Croweas. There isn't much competition I admit, not much else flowering, but it is a joy to see a plant that only attracts native bees. Barely a feral to be seen. It's the nectar they're after, not much pollen gathering going on.


















Megachile chrysopyga has an unusual habit of cocking its tail up when it lands (kind of puts me in mind of a kookaburra), and the drapes always match the curtains - but there are shades of orange, from pale to vibrant, as you can see.

This smaller flowered Crowea cultivar below is not so attractive to Megachile but I spotted (no pun intended) an unusual bee frequenting it, with very crisp, smart stripes on the abdomen, and tiny spots spangled across the thorax.
I asssumed it was another Megachile sp. it is the right size and shape, but on looking at the pics you can see it has no scopa (pollen baskets) on the legs, and in fact is quite badly equipped for the pollen game altogether.


I think we have another cuckoo, probably Thyreus again, this time a kleptoparasite of Megachile rather than Amegilla.
I'll do the ask at the museum, and see if I can get
a confirmation.

More native bees

These tiny reed bees (Exoneura sp), are commonly found in the garden quite early in the season and all through summer into autumn. They really are small, hence the dodgy photo, only about 5mm. Obviously of an easy going and opportunistic nature as they are delighted with anything flowering, native or exotic (polylectic).
They are a long tongued bee, in the family Apidae, and enjoy visiting the Hebe flowers especially, where they can get the (very small) lion's share as the thin tubular Hebe flowers are largely inaccessible to honeybees.

Knowing that they like to nest in pithy stems I've carefully pruned everything in the garden so that plenty of likely nest sites are in the offing. Every year they've spurned my efforts with the local species of Kangaroo Paw, Anigozanthus flavidus, and I've never managed to sight them nesting anywhere. Not even in grasstree flowering stems, which I'm assured are their standard site.

Until this year - and true to their form (in the eastern states they like to nest in Lantana), they've chosen an introduced species, the very beautiful and luckily non-weedy South African Dierama sp. Every stem diligently left after pruning away last years' very tall fairy fishing rod flowers has been neatly drilled out and swept clean of sawdust, and occupied by one or more resident bees.
Exoneura are one of the semi-social (or semi-solitary, depending on your preference) bees, and two or more may occupy a nest and share chores. The larvae are tended and fed with pollen.

These were actually struggling for possession of this stem, sharing wasn't remotely on their minds. Short of ear tagging the bees I couldn't say which was the rightful possessor of the nest.

The other thing that's different about Exoneura is that they survive the winter, unlike most other native bees. Both the male and female spend the winter in the nest. And the cooler days, by the look of things, as they are only out and about when the temperatures are relatively balmy. So I can afford to get attached to these appealing little characters. Hurrah!

A nice article here
Aussie bees abuzz

The bee's snooze

I had the day from hell today, but had one brief spin around the garden. That's not as lacking in challenge as it sounds. The garden is an acre or so.
Anyway, cool sub 20 degree day today (my self-assessed standard is that bees and wasps are inactive here below 20 degrees) so I didn't expect to see many of my favourites - but true to form, asleep in Alyogyne angulata, was this little darling. It is always the first bee I see in spring. The girls nest in solitary fashion in the gound. The boys (and girls that haven't built the nest yet) sleep in flowers, like Ciceley Mary Barker's flower fairies. Sometimes there will be two or three in the one flower.
The extraordinary thing is that they favour A. angulata so particularly. I have several Alyogyne species, including the local A. huegelii. A. angulata is a recently described species from up Kalbarri way - at least 700 km away. So what does it offer that the other 3 species don't? I have no idea, but you'll always find them there while it flowers, and nowhere else.
This bee is probably from the family Halictidae, very likely a Lasioglossum sp. it is minute, by measure of Tarlton Rayment, being only approx. 5-6 mm.
You can kind of see this if you compare to the size of the stamens - this is not a large flowered native hibiscus.

Oh, and another thing - see all that pollen on this little tyke? Bees always have branched hairs on their body to trap pollen. While often not visible unless magnified, if an insect has pollen dusted on it like this - it's a bee, not a wasp!

OK, it's not the easiest, quickest method, but I don't think there is one. After all, bees are only vegetarian wasps.