Today's photo shows a native bee, beautifully coloured and much smaller than a European honey bee.
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The best-known native bee in Ballarat is the blue-banded bee, but the bee pictured is a chequered cuckoo-bee, photographed at Invermay ten days ago, and still present earlier this week.
This strikingly-coloured little native bee is not well known in Ballarat, and is probably uncommon here. Like the blue-banded bee, it is attracted to blue flowers.
Also like its blue-banded counterpart, it is a rather stocky little insect. Its wings are smoky-black.
Only one bee at a time has been seen at Invermay. Other bees chase it away from dahlia flowers.
Being native insects, cuckoo-bees do not depend on non-native lavenders, sages or other garden plants, but they are most easily seen in gardens where these plants grow.
Apart from its striking blue-and-black colouring, the chequered cuckoo-bee is noteworthy for another reason - it lays its eggs in the nests of other native bees, hence its name.
It is not the only cuckoo-bee - there are several others, including a beautiful iridescent green one found from time to time in the Ballarat district.
A female cuckoo-bee sneaks into a blue-banded bee's nest and lays her egg in a cell pre-stocked with provisions intended for the larva of the blue-banded bee.
The cuckoo-bee's egg hatches first and consumes the food, leaving the blue-banded bee larva to starve and die.
The blue-banded bee makes its nest mostly in small holes in the ground.
Each female makes her own nest - these are not social bees - but several females may nest near each other, making it easier for the cuckoo-bee to find nests already prepared with food for her egg.
The striking colours of the chequered cuckoo-bee are similar to those of a male blue wren (fairy-wren) - enamel-blue and black in an impressive combination.
Perhaps we would see more native bees if we took more notice of the insects visiting flowers and garden shrubs. Flowers in the blue-mauve range seem most likely to attract them. They are seen mostly on sunny days.
BIRD REPORTS
A dozen banded lapwings in a paddock east of Clunes is an interesting recent local bird sighting. This species is an occasional district visitor, but none were seen last year.
Ploughed autumn paddocks are favoured places and although classed with the waders, the banded lapwing is not a waterbird.
Five wedge-tailed eagles over Bald Hills is another notable recent report.