A New Invader

I was searching my garden for something different and spotted this bee. I thought it was a hoverfly because it hovered over flowers and darted away at odd angles, just like a hoverfly. But it was too small for a drone and too fat for a little hoverfly. It was very hard to get a photo of it it because it didn’t stay on the flower for more than a moment.

When I looked at it on the computer screen I saw that it was not a fly and remembered TeeJay blipping one last month. It’s a wool carder bee, Anthidium manicatum. The first sightings of wool carder bees in New Zealand were 10 years ago, in Napier in the North Island and Nelson in the upper South Island. How quickly it has spread, now to a rural area several hundred kilometres further south.

Hot and muggy today. I went out to gather vegetables from the garden and it was raining lightly. I was wearing a low-necked sleeveless top. The rain felt wonderful on my skin.