Greenleaf Farms

I turned to chooks when the town we live in wouldn't allow bees, but I still remain a member of the local bee club because I love bees so.  This one from the New Scientist Aperture page, really caught my eye.  It is a tropical bee,  and belongs the Euglossini  family(Orchid Bees). 

The Exaerete are, without a doubt, the most spectacular of the Neotropical bees. They are characterized by their large size, metallic green coloration and very long tongues, which they use to extract nectar from flowers with long corollas (particularly orchids) and by their cleptoparasitic habits.

 There are five genera of Euglossini bees and while three of those genera (Euglossa, Eulaema, and Eufriesea) collect pollen and construct nests, the other two genera (Exaerete and Aglae) have evolved as cleptoparasites of Eulaema and Eufriesea. These cleptoparasites act as cuckoos, destroying the eggs of their preferred host and replacing them with their own eggs.