Stingless Bees

Stingless bees are highly social insects, with one queen and thousands of workers who live together in a protected place which, in nature, is usually in a hollow tree. Stingless bees inhabit the northern parts of Australia, although on the east coast they reach further south than Sydney. They also occur in other tropical parts of the world. The Australian species are much smaller than European honey bees. They are generally black in colour. As their name suggests, they do not have a sting although than can give you a little bite with their jaws. Although there are hundreds of species of Australian native bees, the stingless bees are the only ones that make and store quantities of honey

Download the general article (PDF 760kb) on Australian native stingless bees that I wrote for the magazine Nature Australia

In recent years, we have learned to rescue native bees from threatened locations and put them in wooden hives. We propagate these hives and so help to conserve a native species. We have also learnt how to extract honey from the bees. Download the article on these new advances (PDF 560kb)