Blue mason bee
Osmia caerulescens (Linnaeus, 1758)
Status not recordedbees wasps and ants
The blue mason bee (Osmia caerulescens) is a species in the family Megachilidae, order Hymenoptera. Recorded adults reach 1 cm in length. Source checklists list it for 1 country: Australia.
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Quick facts about the blue mason bee
- Weight
- Not recorded
- Length
- 8 mm – 1 cmsrc for Length
- Lifespan
- Not recorded
- Diet
- Nectarivoresrc for Diet
- Main food
- Not recorded
- Habitat
- human_modifiedsrc for Habitat
- Young per litter or clutch
- Not recorded
- Generations a year
- Twosrc for Generations a year
- Conservation status
- Not recorded
- Countries on record
- 1 countrysrc for Countries on record
How big is the blue mason bee?
Where does the blue mason bee live?
Countries where Catalogue of Life checklists list the species. Many checklists carry no country data, so the list is often incomplete. It is not a range map.
The blue mason bee is listed for 1 country.
- Listed
- Not listed
The same countries as a list
Why a country list is not a range map
Listed by: ITIS (scope: global), through the Catalogue of Life.
Where has it been introduced?
The Global Register of Introduced and Invasive Species lists the blue mason bee as introduced in 2 countries.
Introduced means brought by people and now present; invasive means the country's checklist records an impact. A species can be native to one part of a country and introduced in another. Source: Global Register of Introduced and Invasive Species (CC BY 4.0).
Is the blue mason bee endangered?
No conservation assessment is recorded for this species in our sources. That is not the same as being safe: it has not been matched to an assessment.
How is the blue mason bee classified?
- kingdomAnimalia
- phylumArthropoda
- classInsecta
- orderHymenoptera
- familyMegachilidae
- genusOsmia
- SpeciesOsmia caerulescens (Linnaeus, 1758)
Synonyms Amblys coerulescens, Andrena coerulescens, Andrena cupraria, Anthophora aenea, Apis aenea, Apis caerulescens, Apis coerulescens, Apis cuprea, Apis muraria nitida, Apis superbus, Chalicodoma aenea, Megachile aenea, Osmia aenea, Osmia coerulescens, Osmia coerulescens, Osmia cyanea, Osmia dutti, Osmia purpurea, Osmia rustica, Pithitis aenea, Trachusa coerulescens
Other names and names in other languages (10)
- Blå murerbiDanish
- Stahlblaue MauerbieneGerman
- Blaue MauerbieneGerman
- Osmie bleuâtreFrench
- gullmurerbieNorwegian Bokmål
- Blauwe metselbijDutch
- gullmurarbieNorwegian Nynorsk
- murarka lucernowaPolish
- blåmurarbiSwedish
- blått murarbiSwedish
Relatives of the blue mason bee
Other species in the same genus Osmia.
European orchard bee
Osmia cornuta
Hornfaced bee
Osmia cornifrons
Blueberry mason bee
Osmia ribifloris
Red-tailed mason bee
Osmia bicolor
Mountain mason bee
Osmia inermis
Blue orchard bee
Osmia lignaria
CompareBlue mason bee vs European orchard beeBlue mason bee vs Hornfaced beeBlue mason bee vs Blueberry mason beeBlue mason bee vs Red-tailed mason bee
Common questions
Answered only where our data holds the answer.
How big is the blue mason bee?
An adult blue mason bee measures 8 mm – 1 cm long, according to values recorded on Wikidata.
Where does the blue mason bee live?
Catalogue of Life checklists list the blue mason bee for 1 country: Australia. Checklist coverage is uneven, so the true range may be wider.
Is the blue mason bee an invasive species?
The Global Register of Introduced and Invasive Species lists the blue mason bee as introduced in 2 countries: New Zealand and United States, but does not flag it as invasive in any of them.
What kind of animal is the blue mason bee?
The blue mason bee (Osmia caerulescens) belongs to the family Megachilidae in the order Hymenoptera.
Sources and how to cite this page
Data as of 2026-11-14. How this page is put together.
- Catalogue of Life eXtended Release · CC BY 4.0 · 2026-10-16 XR
Catalogue of Life (2026). Catalogue of Life eXtended Release, version 2026-10-16 XR. Catalogue of Life Foundation, Amsterdam, Netherlands. https://doi.org/10.48580/dgzlf - Global Register of Introduced and Invasive Species (GRIIS) · CC BY 4.0 · 2026-11-13
Pagad, S., Genovesi, P., Carnevali, L., Schigel, D. & McGeoch, M.A. (2018) Introducing the Global Register of Introduced and Invasive Species. Scientific Data 5: 170202. https://doi.org/10.1038/sdata.2017.202. Country checklists published through GBIF by the IUCN SSC Invasive Species Specialist Group. - TraitCH: a multi-taxa functional trait dataset for Switzerland and Europe · CC BY 4.0 · 2.0
Chauvier, Y., Adde, A., Bergamini, A. et al. (2025) TraitCH: a multi-taxa functional trait dataset for Switzerland and Europe. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15063844
Embed a card for this animal on your own site
Copy this code. The card shows the photo with its credit, key facts and a link back to this page.
CreatureData. (2026). Blue mason bee (Osmia caerulescens). Retrieved from https://creaturedata.com/animals/blue-mason-bee
“Blue mason bee (Osmia caerulescens).” CreatureData, 2026, https://creaturedata.com/animals/blue-mason-bee.
@misc{blue_mason_bee_2026,
title = {Blue mason bee (Osmia caerulescens)},
author = {{CreatureData}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://creaturedata.com/animals/blue-mason-bee},
note = {Data as of 2026-11-14}
}