Australian Stingless Bees - A Safe and Fascinating Way to Keep Your Own Honeybees
By Anne Dollin

Ten of Australia's 1,500 native bee species are true blue honeybees. These tiny 4 mm black bees are in the genera Trigona and Austroplebeia. They live in large social colonies with a queen, drones and thousands of worker bees. They make a delicious aromatic honey called 'Sugarbag'. But best of all they don't sting!

They build intricate nests inside hollow trees and other cavities. The nest is built from 'cerumen', a mixture of wax and resin. At the centre of the nest is a delicate brood comb where the eggs are laid. Surrounding this are insulating layers, and then clusters of pollen pots and honey pots that resemble small grapes.

Although these bees cannot sting, they can defend their nests quite successfully against intruders. They seal up all openings in their nest other than the small entrance hole. Guard bees defend this entrance and can fight off insect intruders by wrestling with them doggedly or even burying them with resin.

Nectar is gathered from the flowers by forager worker bees, then other bees thicken the nectar and store it in the resinous honey pots. The resulting honey has a wonderful aromatic taste with delicate hints of eucalyptus or other bush flavours. It has been prized by Australian Aboriginals for thousands of years and is known as 'Sugarbag'. A niche honey market is developing for this unique product in Australia.

Stingless bees also collect pollen from the flowers to feed their young. They are proving to be efficient pollinators of some crops in Australia such as macadamia, mango and watermelon. Stingless bees prefer to collect pollen only short distances from their nests. This behaviour is making them successful pollinators of some greenhouse crops such as capsicums because they can cope with the confinement of the greenhouse better than the European honeybees can.

Stingless bees can be kept successfully in small wooden boxes in many parts of Australia. Stingless bee keepers are continually developing new and better techniques for controlling predators, insulating hives, propagating hives and harvesting honey.

Australian stingless bees are tropical and only live in the warmer parts of Australia. They are found throughout Queensland, in the northern areas of Western Australia and in the northern and central areas of the Northern Territory. In New South Wales they are found only in northern areas and in coastal areas down as far as Bega. It is too cold for the stingless bees in Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania.

The hobby of keeping Australian stingless bees is rapidly spreading in popularity as more and more people discover the delights of keeping these safe and fascinating Australian honey bees.

About the Author:

Dr Anne Dollin manages the Australian Native Bee Research Centre and hosts the Aussie Bee website: http://www.aussiebee.com.au. Visit this website to learn how to care for Australian stingless bees and to find out how to buy a hive of Australian stingless bees.

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