Fire-tailed Resin Bee - Megachile (Callomegachile) mystaceana, (Chalicodoma mystaceana)
Family MEGACHILIDAE
This page contains pictures and information about Fire-tailed Resin Bees that we found in the Brisbane area, Queensland, Australia.
- Body length 15mm
- The above photo was taken in late afternoon in Wishart Bushland during late summer. Fire-tailed Resin Bee has black head and thorax. Its abdomen is distinctively bright orange-brown in colour. The wings are tinted in black as well. This is a solitary bee and build nest by resin, gum or mud in enclosed spaces such as space between folds of fabric and old Mud-Dauber Wasp nest. They will nest in drilled wooden blocks too.
- This bee likes to visit flowers of family Fabaceae.
- This Resin Bee female builds nest in existing cavity. On Feb 2009, we repaired the pergola in our backyard and had a wooden board left. We drilled a few 10mm diameter holes on it and hung in the pergola. Few days later we had an occupancy.
- Reference:
- 1. Native Bees of the Sydney region, a field guide - Anne Dollin, Michael Batley, Martyn Robinson & Brian Faulkner, Australian Native Bee Research Centre. P48.
- 2. Megachile mystaceana - Fire-tailed Resin Bee - Insects of Townsville, Australia - Graeme Cocks.
- 3. Wildlife of Greater Brisbane - New edition, Published by Queensland Museum 2007, p120.
