By: Michael Fox

Thanks to Georgia Nierfeld for great video of a Bee Hawk Moth Cephonodes kingii in her family’s Pollinator Link® front garden at Chandler.

Great Carpenter Bee (female)

Georgia also found a female Great Carpenter Bee Xylocopa (Koptortosoma) aruana. Australia’s largest solitary bee the female chews a nest in soft timber such as dead limbs of a mango tree. The females (see photograph below) have glossy black abdomens and bright yellow waistcoats.

Australia has over 2,000 species solitary native bees that need specialist homes you can make.

I photographed this male Caper White Belenois java butterfly this morning along the Eastern Outlook Track Mt Gravatt Conservation Reserve.

Caper Whites periodically visit Brisbane in huge numbers. However, there are always some of these attractive butterflies visiting the Reserve in spring. Our National Tree Day plantings include Brush Caper Berry Capparis arborea caterpillar food plant for the Caper White so hopefully we will see butterfly population increasing.