Euglossa dilemma: Florida’s Brilliant New Orchid Bee
If you’ve spotted a dazzling, iridescent green bee darting through your garden, you may have encountered one of Florida’s most fascinating recent arrivals — the Green Orchid Bee (Euglossa dilemma) also known as the Dilemma Orchid Bee. Roughly the size of a honeybee but glowing like a flying emerald, this bee is turning heads among entomologists, gardeners, and nature enthusiasts alike.
A Newcomer to Florida
Euglossa dilemma is native to Central America and Caribbean, where it has long played a vital role in pollinating orchids and bromeliads in tropical forests. Its arrival in Florida is a recent and somewhat mysterious development. The species was first documented in Broward County in 2003, likely arriving by accident — most researchers believe it was transported in a wooden shipping pallet or similar structure containing an active nest. It could have arrived naturally as it is native to most of the Caribbean Islands including Cuba, but this is unproven also.
Since that initial detection, the orchid bee has steadily expanded its range across South Florida, establishing populations in Palm Beach, Broward, Miami-Dade, and Brevard Counties. By 2022, it had colonized much of the southern half of the state, and its range continues to push northward. Florida’s warm subtropical climate has proven hospitable enough for this Central American species to not only survive, but thrive — without any of the specific orchid relationships it relies on back home. Thankfully this isn’t considered a species of concern when it comes to invasiveness. So far no ecological disruptions have been associated with it’s arrival.
A Pollinator Without Its Orchids
In its native range, Euglossa dilemma is intimately tied to orchid species in a mutualistic relationship — the bee commonly gets fragrance compounds alongside nectar from orchids, and the orchid gets pollinated. The orchids most commonly associated with it don’t exist in Florida, yet the bee has adapted remarkably well, becoming a more generalist pollinator here.
One of its most distinctive physical features is its extraordinarily long tongue — much longer relative to its body than almost any other bee species. This tongue evolved to reach the nectar deep inside tubular flowers in Central America. In Florida, that adaptation gives it a competitive edge: it can access nectar from tubular flowers that other common bees, including the European honeybee, simply cannot reach.
Common plants you may see the orchid bee visiting in Florida include nonnative basil species like African Blue Basil and the native Firebush, which it visits for nectar. Research has documented the bee visiting an impressive 259 plant taxa across Florida, demonstrating remarkable flexibility for a species pretty specialized in its home range.
The Perfume Collectors: Fragrance Behavior of the Males
The behavior that truly sets male Euglossa dilemma apart from virtually every other bee in Florida is their obsession with fragrance. Male orchid bees do not only collect pollen or nectar for sustenance the way females do. Instead, they spend a significant portion of their time seeking out and collecting aromatic compounds from a surprisingly diverse array of sources — fragrant flowers, aromatic leaves, decaying wood, and even wood-rot fungi.
Using specialized brush-like structures on their front legs, males scrape fragrant compounds from surfaces, then hover briefly to transfer the collected oils into specialized hollow pouches in their enlarged hind legs. Watch closely and you can actually see this behavior — a male bee lands, works furiously at a surface, then hovers to transfer its haul before returning for more.
In Florida, males have been observed collecting fragrances from clove oil, cinnamon, lemongrass, rotten timber oozing resin, wood-decay fungi, basil, and a variety of orchids and aromatic plants. The fact that they are attracted to these essential oils makes them unusually easy to observe up close — more on that below.
Courtship: Nature’s Most Elaborate Cologne
All that fragrance collecting serves one purpose: impressing a mate. When a male encounters a female, he releases his carefully curated perfume bouquet and fans his wings to waft the scent toward her. The complexity and quality of a male’s fragrance is thought to signal his health, vitality, and genetic fitness — essentially, the better the cologne, the better the mate.
Different species of orchid bee tend to be highly selective about the specific fragrance compounds they collect, and these preferences are thought to play a role in maintaining species boundaries in areas where multiple orchid bee species coexist. Research has found that E. dilemma males produce characteristic perfume compounds distinct from those of closely related species — a chemical signature unique to the species.
One recently discovered and particularly dramatic behavior: male orchid bees will actively attack and steal fragrance stores from competing males. Scent-robbing and fighting over accumulated perfume has been documented in nature, suggesting just how valuable these aromatic collections are to a male’s reproductive success.
Look for Them in Your Landscape — and Help Track Them!
Want to see if orchid bees are active in your area? It’s surprisingly easy to find out. Soak a small piece of paper or cotton ball in clove, eucalyptus, and of course vanilla (distilled from the famous orchid) essential oil and place it outside in a sunny spot. Or if you are more adventurous, apply it to your skin. If male orchid bees are anywhere nearby, they will likely find it within minutes — often hovering and landing repeatedly as they collect the aromatic compounds.
Once you spot one, look for the telltale signs: brilliant metallic green body, dark translucent wings, and that characteristic hovering behavior as it works a surface. It is significantly more robust than a sweat bee, with a wider body and a noticeably longer tongue.
When you see one, snap a photo and log it on iNaturalist. Citizen science observations like yours are genuinely valuable to researchers tracking this species’ range expansion across Florida. Every confirmed sighting helps build a more complete picture of where this bee is establishing — and where it may be headed next.
Resources:
Green Orchid Bee
- https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/IN1013
- https://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/MISC/BEES/green_orchid_bee.htm
BEES OF FLORIDA
Orchid Bees
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