A worldwide community photographing and learning about wildlife
Project Noah Nature School
Amegilla cingulata
Hymenoptera; Apidae; Amegilla; Amegilla cingulata (Fabricius, 1775). According to Wikipedia, A. cingulata leads a solitary life style. The females live in excavated burrows and the males apparently cling to plant stems overnight. As you can see the bees I photographed a little before 5:00 pm were already laying claim to their stems for the night.
These bees were spotted in our backyard. When my wife pointed them out to me, they were flying around from flower to flower at a pretty good speed, not spending much time on each one. I didn't think I was going to get any decent pictures because they were to quick for me, but they started to settle on twigs or stems and then I got some photos.
These bees are called Blue-banded Bees, but my specimens show only the faintest hint of blue on the bands near the posterior of the abdomen. I was slightly concerned about this, for the obvious reason - possible wrong ID ? However specimens shown on many websites have varying shades of blue, including many like those shown here - almost pure white.
Spotted on Jul 6, 2022
Submitted on Jul 6, 2022
4 Comments
To: Mark Ridgway
Thanks for your comment Mark and thanks also for all the work you put into helping everyone to enjoy Project Noah. John B.
Yes it's hard to take the news here from a biodiversity point of view. And then so many are still talking about getting their lives back to pre-covid 'normal'. They have learned nothing.
Australia has some biological commonality with your area for example the lumpy spider I recognised immediately as a 'Poltys sp.' as we have a good variety of the genus here. It was an easy head start in the search. Glad you are enjoying PN.. keep the excellent posts coming as we have nothing to find here in a very wet winter.
To: Mark Ridgway
Good evening Mark, thank you for your comment. It is always nice to hear from you. I often think of Australia these days. Climate change is taking its toll everywhere, but your country seems to be getting hammered very hard by fires and floods. It is just awful for the people and devastating for the wildlife. My father's second wife was an Australian lady (a classical pianist) and they lived in Canberra for many years before retiring in U.K. They told me the most wonderful stories of their life together "Down Under". Of course, they both passed away many years ago, but I still remember their happy stories and it has given me a kind of affection for Australia although I have never been there. I hope you and your wife are keeping well and thank you both for your help and attentiveness. I am really enjoying Project Noah. Best Regards John B.
Nice series JohnB. We didn't see any of ours this year. I hope they are still around.