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Sticker of Red-eyed resin bee
Bug card No. 3563 of 4,939

Red-eyed resin bee

Megachile aurifrons
Name means: “aurifrons means golden brow in Latin”
Eats: Nectar and pollenBees and bumblebeesGardens and meadows6 legs

The red-eyed resin bee is an Australian bee with bright red eyes and an orange, furry face. The female has a little bump on her face like a pig's snout, which helps her carry sticky resin. She uses the resin to seal up her nest.

Lives in
All over mainland Australia, even in deserts and towns
Length
1 to 1.2 cm (0.39 to 0.47 in)
Top speed
about 22 km/h (14 mph)
Flying, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Can sting

Watch out! Read about its close cousin on Venom Wiki →

What does it eat?
It visits flowers from many different plant families for nectar and pollen. The babies eat a big ball of pollen that the mother packs into the nest.
For real!Photo of Red-eyed resin bee
Picture by Heath Hunter. CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Red-eyed resin bee about 1.2 cm long (0.47 in)A grain of rice about 6 mm (0.24 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)
as long as 2 grains of rice in a rowcould fly across a whole football pitch in 17 secondsmoves 510 times its own body length every second

How big is Red-eyed resin bee compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

The male's eyes are two colours: red at the top and very light green at the bottom.

2

It nests in all kinds of holes: old beetle tunnels, gum nuts, old mud wasp nests, bee hotels and even screw holes in garden furniture.

3

Most of its relatives build a separate room for each baby, but this bee makes one big pile of pollen and tucks the eggs into it.

4

The male has special front feet with a big white flap that has a grey spot on it.

5

Its bright red eye colour fades quickly after the bee dies.

you asked

Most asked questions about Red-eyed resin bee

?Where do red-eyed resin bees nest?

In holes of all sorts, from beetle tunnels and gum nuts to bee hotels and holes in fence posts.

?How big is a red-eyed resin bee?

Females are about 12 millimetres long and males about 10 millimetres.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Megachile aurifrons
Named by
Smith, 1853
Group
Bees and bumblebees
Family
Megachilidae
Classification
Insecta > Hymenoptera > Megachilidae
Lives on
Australia and Oceania
Also known as
Golden-browed resin bee

Where the facts come from

  1. Megachile aurifrons (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
  2. Picture by Heath Hunter. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.

If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.

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