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With international concern over the decline of bees due to various poests and diseases, it’s more important than ever before to teach young children about the incredible place of bees in our natural ecosystems.
Native bees provide the perfect opportunity to do this. The benefits are:
- they do not sting,
- they are a native animal: Australia has over 1600 species of native bees, 11 of which do not sting (genera Tetragonula and Austroplebeia)
- they will visit a multitude of flowers
- their hives are attractive: they are happiest in a natural log, or can hive in a box
- their honey is edible
The Aussie Bee and the Australian Native Bee Research Centre website has a comprehensive list of contacts for buying Stingless Bees and an information page for how to keep them!
Arcadia Public School have successfully installed a box for their Stingless Bees, from BeeZotted
UPDATE 28/3/17
Last Saturday on Gardening Australia Costa Georgiadis demonstrated how to split a beehive of Native Stingless Bees when the box is full (9kgs)! The beehive of interest was located at his old primary school: Rose Bay Public School.
The boys and girls helped Costa mount the two beehives beside eachother – without the need for protective clothing and without being stung. Fantastic!
“The great thing about the colonies being here at the school is that these kids will have hands on experience in learning about the important role these tiny pollinators play in all our gardens.”
Watch the episode here.