Hello everyone, Check the website BeeAware it’s wonderful and when you subscribe they send you the latest news and research. The latest newletter shows the most amazing video of a Blue Banded bee pollinating tomato flowers and also a fantastic article on bees showing resistance to varroa but also a really interesting discovery about the classic wax comb with wire: apparently either the queen doesn’t lay along the wires or the nurse bees don’t feed the pupae along those lines. This reinforces my feelings that natural wax comb is best for the brood box (and Flow for the honey!). Check it out, it’s fascinating http://newsandfeatures.uncg.edu/kaira-wagoner-honey-bee-research/
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can you please driect me to where the video is? I am not finding the link. or how to subscribe, the RSS subscribe seams to be for the UNCG as a hole.
Thanks for the info - but the link takes us to a university website, bit the BeeAware resource you were talking about.
Is this the website you meant? http://beeaware.org.au/
Sorry! That particular video is on the ABC science website: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-15/australian-blue-banded-bee-is-a-head-banger/7019074
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Yes it is, you can subscribe to the newsletter on the website 
This is a fantastic site, I’ve saved quite a few pieces from here & ‘newsletter’ very informative too. There was a piece on ABC(Channel 2) news a few days ago about blue banded bees & how they actually head butt parts of teh flower something like 360 x per second! Are looking at trying to make commercial for massive greenhouse tomato crops. hmmm?
Just saw link to ABC already there…oops
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Have you ever heard a Bumblebee vibrate a poppy?
They get right into the flower and rattle their wings causing the anthers to “explode”
Each different flower they treat the same way has a different resonance and they learn how to do it. Remarkable.
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I came across a few bumblebees, but not fortunate enough to see them in flowers. I love the different resonance, will check out, could be useful for a project precedent I’m currently working on.
Where do you live Kirsten? Are you an entomologist? Here, Murwillumbah N-E NSW slightly north-west of Byron, we have all sorts of bees on our property. The beautiful Blue Banded bees have suddenly become more numerous since i planted blue salvias, little narcissistic things they are! I’ve made them a nest with bamboo ends (according to a native bee website) so I hope i’ll see even more of them. We also have Teddy Bear bees, they are really brown and really furry; Resin bees, they just look like black honey bees, maybe a little larger; they make this absolutely un-cleanable wax which is like hardened bitumen, I don’t know how their brood get out of these. Then there are the leaf cutting bees, to be honest i haven’t sighted them but you can tell where they’ve been: perfect little round circles cut out of leaves. Of course we have the native stingless honey bees and several breeds of mud wasps. I love mud wasps, they look fierce but they are very gentle, we have some that make cocoons (pots?) as small as peas, then there are the ones that make amphoras all in a row, so very aesthetic and then there is one that makes GIANORMOUS mud nests with a trumpet for an entrance, that’s a really big wasp but again, not aggressive. Finally of course we have lots of paper wasps who make spaceship nests and those are really mean mamas so we won’t talk about them! 
Prof Dave Goulson is your man. Google him. He has done lots with Bumbles and they are our window on bee decline here in the UK.
Thanks Dee, I shall. I should also start taking pictures of these little creatures 