Author Gary Taylor ◦
This little cutie, Hylaeus (Rhodohylaeus) proximus, is another one of the “usual culprits” I often see on my bee hunts. And although I’ve seen her on many different types of plants (Hakeas, Banksias, Grevilleas, Melaleucas…) she seems to favour the Eucalypts… Dunno, maybe it’s ‘cos with the others the flowers, each a jungle in it’s own right to a little bee, is generally an individual flower on it’s own stem…
Each plant more a collection of little jungle islands, a bit like the Witsundays… and to get from one island to the next you have to swim, only to find it’s already chockers with “tourists” so you swim to the next… sure the chances of being eaten by a shark are fairly slim but still very real… The Eucalypts flower in masses of blooms, for a little bee it’d be like dropping in to the Daintree. She can wander this jungle all day happily going about her business, simply ducking down out of sight and slipping through the undergrowth to another flower (rather than risk the sharks) if she feels threatened…
And again, last couple of pics are for scale. Look at the size of her competition… That monster is capable of slurping up more life sustaining nectar in one day than she’d use in her entire lifetime raising her family… And there’s the answer to the question “why are feral honeybees considered to bee a threat to our beautiful little natives?”…
But she’s still a gutsy little Aussie… 4th pic, she’s standing her ground, well she thinks she is… but that Euro is oblivious to her even being there…
so, 5th pic, she’d ducked down into the undergrowth (she’s spent her life here, she knows this forest like the back of her hand) and came up behind the beast. I missed the shot but I can tell you she had a damn good crack at it, first lunging up to bite it from underneath and then having a go at one it’s legs… No, it didn’t scare the feral beast off but that’s not the point, Good on ya girl, gotta love that Aussie spirit… 😃
Photographs © Gary Taylor