Introducing our New Buzz

The WDSS new mascot based on the Aussie Blue Banded Bee

The new WDSS Bee mascot "Buzz" is based on the Australian native, Blue Banded Bee. The Blue Banded Bee is about 11mm long and have bands of metallic blue fur across their black abdomens.

Blue Banded Bees are solitary bees. This means that each female bee mates and then builds a solitary nest by herself. She builds her nest in a shallow burrow in clay soil or sometimes in mudbricks. Many Blue Banded Bees may build their nest burrows in the same spot, close to one another, like neighbouring houses in a village.

Blue Banded Bees can perform a special type of pollination called 'buzz pollination'. Some flowers hide their pollen inside tiny capsules. A Blue Banded Bee can grasp a flower of this type and shiver her flight muscles, causing the pollen to shoot out of the capsule. She can then collect the pollen for her nest and carry it from flower to flower, pollinating the flowers. Quite a few of our native Australian flowers require buzz pollination eg Hibbertia, Senna.

Tomato flowers are also pollinated better when visited by a buzz pollinating bee. Researchers at the University of Adelaide made substantial progress in developing native Blue Banded Bees for greenhouse tomato pollination.