People Shocked To Find Out Blue Bees Exist

People are shocked to discover that blue-coloured bees exist.

The unusual insects can be found all across Australia, except for in Tasmania, and their distinctive bright blue bands make them easy to spot.

Although they have stingers on their backs, they're not known as an aggressive species and can usually be found near native plants, like tomato flowers.

The fancy name for the bright-coloured bees is Amegilla cingulata. They grow to about 11cm and have a relatively short life span, only living for around 40 days.

Shutterstock/Ulrike Richter

You can tell the males and females apart as the males have five blue stripes on their bodies, whereas the females have just four. The creatures don't produce honey, but are known to shake flowers to get that sweet pollen off.

The creatures have come to light since a photographer posted a photo on Facebook, which got Australians chatting about how they had never even heard of the animal.

One said: "Never seen a blue bee or knew they existed. Beautiful."

Someone else commented: "That's amazing! I've never seen or heard of anything like it!"

Others said they have seen the animals in their gardens recently.

While it's not usually advisable to get too close to any sort of bee, one beekeeper says he and his bees have such a good friendship that they don't sting him.

He proves this point by allowing up to 60,000 of them to completely cover his head. He's even won a Guinness World Record for his efforts, which you can watch below:

The man, who goes by the name Nature M.S., says the bees are his best pals, so they don't regard him as a threat, meaning they don't sting him.

His impressive party trick has even earned himself a place in the Guinness World Records, where he holds the title for the longest time for a person to have their head fully covered in bees - it's 4 hours, 10 minutes and five seconds, by the way.

Nature, from Kerala in India, has always had an affinity with bees, letting them crawl about his face since he was just seven years old.

Even on the odd occasion he does get stung, Nature says it's his own fault - well, I can't say I disagree. He says that without 'any fault of mine, a bee would never sting me at all'.

Topics: Interesting, Animals

Amelia Ward

Amelia is a journalist at LADbible. After studying journalism at Liverpool John Moores and Salford Uni (don't ask), she went into PR and then the world of music. She spent a few years working on festivals and events before joining LADbible. In her spare time, Amelia likes music and spending good, quality time with her cat, Paul. You can contact Amelia at [email protected].

@ameliasward