October Outing – Brindabellas “In search of a solitary bee”

Kevin McCue will be leading a fascinating outing to the Brindabellas on Friday 24 Oct, and specialist Kim Pullen will be joining us.

Besides the intrinsic intrigue of a native bee that burrows a particular depth into a termite mound and seems to need a particular plant in the nearby understory, this outing presents an opportunity to contribute, through citizen science, updated information about that bee.

The solitary bee in question is Leioproctus (Leioproctus) nigrofulvus (Cockerell 1914) (Hymenoptera: Colletidae). It has been found to nest exclusively in mounds of the subterranean native termite Coptotermes lacteus (Froggatt 1898), and adult flights coincide with bloom in Davesia, the native legume on which it forages. Researchers studied it in the Brindabellas before the wildfires of 2003, and had since rediscovered its presence after these fires. Now, the question is whether it has survived the wildfires of 2020. This is where our outing could be helpful.

Meeting time: 9am

Meeting Place: Dillon Close, off Namatjira Drive, beside the tennis courts at Weston Creek. Here car-pooling will be facilitated, with 4WD vehicles recommended, as we may be driving to a high-elevation location near Piccadilly Circus. This will depend on success at our first stop at Condor Creek, where there’s a possibility of finding a lower-elevation population of the bee.

Bring: morning tea and lunch

RSVP: by using the form to the right, or by email to John at outings@fieldnatsact.com

Background: The holdings of the bee Leioproctus nigrofulvus in the ANIC show two series of specimens associated with termite mounds in the Brindabella Range. One series gives an altitude of 2,500 feet (~760m), which puts it at the foot of the Brindabella Range (rather than the crest). The other series is more specific, giving the locality as Five Crossings, which is (or was) the name of a track that followed Condor Creek upstream from Thompson’s Corner (on the Brindabella Road) towards Blundell’s Flat. Condor Creek at Five Crossings is at an altitude of ~680m, so there may not be a need to go up to Piccadilly Circus unless we have no luck lower down – Kim Pullen, Oct 2025

This is a link to the key paper by Glynn Maynard and Sujaya Rao:

https://bioone.org/journals/the-pan-pacific-entomologist/volume-86/issue-1/2009-20.1/The-solitary-bee-Leioproctus-Leioproctus-nigrofulvus-Cockerell-1914-Hymenoptera/10.3956/2009-20.1.short?tab=ArticleLinkReference