Native Bee Comb
A reminder to all our faithful readers out there, on December 8 we will be hosting our very last workshop in 2012. This is on the most entertaining topic of native bees and hosted by Marty Skok. Marty has been dabbling in native bees for many years and is very happy to share his knowledge with you on this topic.
Stingless Bee
Australia has over 1,500 species of native bees and these come in an amazing range of colours and sizes ranging from 2mm to 24mm. The vast majority of Australia’s native bees are solitary (build a bee hotel to attract them to your garden) but we also have ten species of social sting-less native bees.
A Bee Hotel for Your Garden
The most well known of these here in Queensland are Trigona sp and Austroplebeia sp. Social stingless native bees have a unique social system that revolves around a mother bee, otherwise more widely known as a queen and sterile female worker bees and drones. The drone is the male and is a carbon copy the queen. These bees usually nest inside hollow trees but are regularly kept in native hives in Queensland and in the northern parts of NSW. Sydney is pretty well the most southern place to find Trigona sp.
As with commercial honey bees, social sting-less native bees have a fascinating and complex social behaviour.
Marty will go into all this with you as well as show you how to split a hive.
So, for the last workshop in 2012 and an entertaining and informative one at that, please click here to register.