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Workshops

If you want to learn more generally about stingless bees and beekeeping, come along to my full day workshops at Brisbane Forest Park, Moreton Bay council, Redlands city, and Gold Coast all in southeast Queensland. These workshops cost from free to $25 to attend. Call them for details and to register.

Brisbane Forest Park

Workshops are held at the BFP HQ, The Gap, Brisbane.
Call 1300 130 372 (This number will direct you to the EPA phone system where you will have to press a number to get to Brisbane Forest Park- Go Bush and Connect with Nature)
or email brisbaneforestpark@epa.qld.gov.au they will email you when it’s time to register. Note that this workshop will NOT be held in 09.

Moreton Bay Regional Council, Queensland

Call Environmental Services (07) 3205 0555 to register. The next workshop will be 17 Jan 2010 at Burpengary.

Redlands city, Queensland

Call Melanie Rippon on (07) 3820 1108 to register. The next workshop will be 13 June 2010 at IndigiScapes, Capalaba.

Gold Coast City Council, Queensland

Call (07) 5581 1521 to register. For more info, see http://www.goldcoastcity.com.au/t_standard2.aspx?pid=7776 . The next workshop may be around September 2010.

Information Booklets

The Australian Native Bee Research Centre (directed by Dr Anne and Les Dollin) has a range of booklets for sale that are highly recommended for those interested in knowing more about our Australian native bees and about keeping these bees. Fax the centre on 02 4576 1196, write to: ANBRC, PO Box 74, North Richmond, NSW 2754, or visit the website: http://www.aussiebee.com.au/infobooklets.html for a list of information and products.

Email group

ANBees group at Yahoo! Groups, a free, easy-to-use email group service. To learn more about the ANBees group, please visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ANBees. To start sending messages to members of this group, simply send email to ANBees@yahoogroups.com.
ANBees is a website linked to the Yahoo group. www.australiannativebees.com

LINKS

The Aussie Bee site is the premier website in Australia (and the world!?) on native bees. It provides a lot of free native bee information in addition to the booklet series mentioned above (http://www.aussiebee.com.au).

Russell and Janine Zabel’s website on Australian native bees provides a wealth of interesting information (http://www.uq.net.au/~zzrzabel/).

FURTHER READING

Australian Stingless Bees: A guide Sugarbag Beekeeping
By John Klumpp
published and distributed by Earthling Enterprises 2007 http://www.earthling.com.au/
This 120 page book has a full colour cover and contains over 100 colour photos of native social stingless bees and how to keep and propagate their hives.

For those of you who are more scientifically oriented, here are some key references on the biology of stingless bees. You should be able to get these references at a good University library.

  • Observations on the nests and behaviour of Trigona in Australia and New Guinea (Hymenoptera, Apidae), Michener C.D. (1961), American Museum Novitates 2026: 1-46.
  • The social behaviour of the bees, Michener C.D. (1974), Belknap Press of Harvard University Press: Cambridge, Massachusetts.
  • Stingless Bees. In Herman, H.R. (Ed.), Sakagami, S.F. (1982), Social Bees, Volume Ill Academic Press: New York, London, Paris, San Diego, São Paulo, Sydney, Tokyo, Toronto.
  • Stingless Bees (Meliponidae) of the western hemisphere, Schwarz J.F. (1948), Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 90: 1-546.
  • Biology of the stingless bees, Wille A. (1983), Annual Review of Entomology 28: 41-64.