Alison Mellor, The Blue Bees (ANIMAL & NATURE 2020)

Blue bees – who knew? With my marco lens, I have been able to capture fascinating insights into the lives of Australian native bees in my own backyard and surrounding areas on the South Coast of NSW. Blue Banded bees are solitary bees, meaning they do not live together in a hive, have no queen bees, and don’t make honey. Female bees make their own small nests in the soil, though they do like to nest close by other female Blue Banded bees. Sometimes male Blue Banded bees congregate together on plant stems, jostling for position before resting for the night. Stunning Neon Cuckoo bees, like cuckoo birds, cheekily sneak their eggs into the nests of Blue Banded Bees, leveraging of the hard work Blue Banded Bees have put into making nests for their own young.

Images have been resized for web display, which may cause some loss of image quality. Note: Original high-resolution images are used for judging.