Australian native bees

Stingless bees (Family Apidae; Tribe Meliponini) are an extremely diverse group of bees found all over the world from South America to Australia. I currently have a hive of the native bee species Tetragonula carbonaria (formerly known as Trigona carbonaria). Despite being extremely small, they are quite similar in many ways to the honey bee: they both form eusocial colonies with division of labour and their foragers collect nectar and pollen to sustain the colony. However, aside from the honey bee having a sting, there are also some significant differences. Honey bee foragers will communicate the location of new food sources through dance and they build their nests primarily from wax secreted from glands on their underside. In contrast, stingless bees use chemicals to communicate and T. carbonaria nests rely more heavily on resin from plants as a building material, although they do use wax secreted from glands on their sides. It is worth noting that this characteristic varies amongst stingless bee species, for instance the Australian native bee species Austroplebeia australis uses much more wax during hive construction. For more information on Australian stingless bee species please refer to the Aussie Bee website.

There is also some evidence to suggest that with other stingless bee species, the drones (males) are actively involved working in the nest. This in direct contrast to the honey bee, whose drones do little other than consume colony resources and search for a mate. Perhaps as a result of this, stingless bee drones look very similar to the female workers while with the honey bee there are big differences in size between the two.

Finally, the brood reared by T. carbonaria is one of the most striking differences between this species and the honey bee. While the honey bee will rear its brood in cells in the wax comb, T. carbonaria brood is constructed in a spiral formation which rises through the middle of the nest. I currently have some pictures of this amazing structure, but as I do not own them (a friend sent them to me) I shall endeavour to take some of my own to put on this site.

Jack Simpson