Australian stingless bees make a delightful garden pet! These tiny 4mm bees are cute, harmless and fascinating to watch.

They have the same social structure as commercial honeybees do -- with a queen, drones and thousands of worker bees. However, they do not swarm away, abandoning their hive as commercial bees sometimes do.

Kids can safely watch the busy workers bustling to and fro through their hive entrance. Some carry in nectar from the flowers. Others carry pollen on their hind legs, in shades of yellow, red and white. And still others carry glistening balls of sticky resin on their hind legs, for use in nest building.

For the retired person, there are other advantages. A hive of stingless bees is lightweight and easy to manage. They are a pet that does not generally need feeding, though you can give them a little honey if you wish. And the neighbours will not complain because these tiny bees are stingless.

Stingless bees can be kept in northern Western Australia, in most of the Northern Territory, in Queensland and in northern and coastal areas of New South Wales. It is too cold for these bees to survive in the ACT, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania.

To find out where you can buy a hive of these bees, visit the Aussie Bee website stingless bee hive sellers page.

The exact number of Australian stingless bees is not known because of the way names were given to them back in the 1800s and early 1900s.

A researcher or collector would find some bees in a remote locality, send them off to a museum overseas and a name would be given to them. If the same thing happened in several other remote locations, a particular type of bee may end up with two or three names.

To try to sort this out, Les and Anne Dollin of the Australian Native Bee Research Centre took off on a series of exciting safaris, looking for those long forgotten populations of Australian stingless bees. They traveled to Arnhem Land looking for Austroplebeia essingtoni, to the Kimberleys looking for Austroplebeia websteri and to Central Australia looking for Austroplebeia percincta.

The stories of these native bee safaris can be read in the back issues of Aussie Bee Bulletin.

Although Les and Anne were quite successful in finding many varieties of stingless bees in their safaris, sorting them out proved to be much more difficult.

Unfortunately Australian stingless bees proved to be very hard to tell apart, even for professionals. They only have very slight differences in colour, size and hair pattern.

A full solution to the puzzle will have to wait until a major DNA study can be conducted. In the meantime, the existing knowledge about the names of our Australian stingless bees can be found in the booklet, How to Recognise the Different Types of Australian Stingless Bees.

Expand your knowledge of Australian stingless bees
with the booklets in the Native Bees of Australia Series!

Available from the Aussie Bee website.

-- Nests of Australian Stingless Bees
-- Behaviour of Australian Stingless Bees
-- How to Recognise the Different Types of Australian Stingless Bees
-- Keeping Australian Stingless Bees in a Log or Box
-- Crop Pollination with Australian Stingless Bees
-- Tips on Stingless Beekeeping by Australian Beekeepers
-- Boxing and Splitting Hives: A Complete Do-It-Yourself Guide for Stingless Beekeepers

Compared with many other countries around the world, stingless beekeeping in Australia is quite advanced. Individual beekeepers have been developing the techniques of stingless beekeeping for over 40 years.

In Australia today:

-- There is a growing interest in saving nests from landclearing developments.

-- Techniques for keeping nests in hives and splitting hives have been developed.

-- Some beekeepers have hundreds of boxed stingless bee hives in their collections.

-- Commercial crop pollination services with stingless bees are being provided. Successful results have been shown with macadamia, lychee, melon and avocado crops.

-- Honey and cerumen are being harvested from hives.

-- Indigenous communities are setting up local stingless bee businesses.

-- And stingless bee hives are on display in zoos and museums.

Aussie Bee has been promoting the development of this stingless bee industry by collecting and publishing ideas and techniques developed by beekeepers. In this way, new beekeepers can learn from the experiences of others and more quickly establish their own thriving stingless bee hive collections.

Some of this material has been published in the popular booklet series: Tips on Stingless Beekeeping by Australian Beekeepers, Volumes 1-3.

There is an also a thriving native bee chat group on Yahoo where enthusiasts share their ideas and observations.

Australian Stingless Bees: A Guide to Sugarbag Beekeeping by John Klumpp is a brand new, full colour publication on how to keep Australian stingless bees.

Price: $35 plus postage and handling
MORE DETAILS

Written from the point of view of the native bee enthusiast, this detailed book guides you through all aspects of the hobby.

John Klumpp, who currently has 60 hives of stingless bees, is one of Australia's most creative stingless beekeepers.

Topics Included
- Stingless bee behaviour
- Queens, workers and drones
- How to find a nest in the bush
- Rescuing nests
- Tips on buying a hive
- Box designs
- Boxing a nest
- Splitting a hive
- Sugarbag honey
- Honey feeders
- Fighting swarms
- Pests and predators
- The cadaghi controversy
- Planting a bee-friendly garden
- Future of stingless beekeeping