An Unkindness of Ravens

By Nevermore

Bee my valentine...

There are at least two male blue banded bees hanging around my garden at the moment. They are occasionally on the same plant, but never moving slow enough for me to get a photo of them together. I would just love to find where they roost at night – I'm sure it must be somewhere in my garden, but I have had no luck yet finding them. They are a little smaller than the females and have five bands instead of four. This all the information about the physical differences between the sexes that I can find. 
My observation of them is that the females have hairier legs – for collecting pollen for their nests (I never see males with pollen on their legs – it all seems to be for their personal immediate consumption!) and that the males have more pronounced 'barbs' on their legs (see the image in large). For those who don't know, BBBs are solitary bees and don't live in hives (nearly all native Australian bees are solitary). The females dig nests in soft ground and the males sleep on tall grasses at night, often with other males and other kinds of bee too.
I try not to blip too many of these, but I do take quite a few pics of them!

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