2 Dollars - Charles III Blue-banded Bee

Niue has operated as a vehicle for New Zealand-administered commemorative coinage for decades, licensing its name to issues that have no connection to the island's roughly 1,500 residents. This piece is one in a long-running nature series exploiting that arrangement — the blue-banded bee (Amegilla cingulata) is native to Australia and parts of Southeast Asia, not Niue.

The species is notable for buzz pollination, vibrating at a specific frequency to dislodge pollen that standard bees cannot access — a biological trait that makes it commercially significant to Australian greenhouse agriculture.