Native Bee

Just back from the airport seeing off Rower2012 on his international journey.

The weather is gloriously warm - I don't quite know how the world decides that Spring starts in September 1st. 31st August was cold and wet, winter in fact. 1st September, the sun comes out, and it's just wonderful.

I decided to hang out in the garden and see what I could see. The echium is alive with honey bees, nothing new about that. So went into the back garden, to the broadbeans which are in full flower, and spotted this guy, doing bee like things. He is nothing like our regular honey bees so I suspect he is a Native Bee. I have no idea what he's called, but you can see that his back is black, not golden banded, and his wings appear to be smaller. You can just see the collar of pollen around his back leg. I'm going to put a couple more pics of the same chappie into my blip folio (bugs in my back yard set), because it was so hard to decide which image was best.