In the garden at the western end of the rainforest area is a slim stump. If you look carefully at the little holes about two-thirds up you will see that one is occupied by tiny bees. Inside will be a nest with many individuals, perhaps hundreds.
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| Stingless bee stump |
They are a species of native stingless bee, Trigona
carbonaria or Sugarbag Bee. As the scientific name, carbonaria, suggests they are very black unlike the European Honey Bee. The Trigona species are only found in the tropics and subtropics.
There are over 1500 species of native bees in Australia. Only about a dozen species are stingless. These are social bees living in nests of hundreds of individuals. Female Solitary bees can sting but Australian bees are not aggressive.
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| Native bees at their nest entrance |
As pollinators these small insects are incredibly important. Many of our native plants need the smaller insects for pollination. The Sugarbag Bee is known to pollinate King Orchids and other Dendrobium spp., cycads, Dianella sp, some wattles, grevilleas, wonga vines and more.
In the last twenty years they've become more important as effective pollinators for fruit and nut crops. Avocado and macadamia benefit from the native bee. Orchardists have found that the size of the crop increases. Other commercial crops also benefit from our little bees; strawberries, watermelons, cucumbers and tomatoes are just a few. In fact there are experiments in Japan for using Trigona carbonaria in commercial glasshouses.
The Sugarbag Bee has a very different hive or nest from the European Honey Bee. They don't have hexagonal cells where the larvae are fed by the workers.
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| T. carbonaria nest in its bee box |
Instead they have a spiral structure of brood cells. The egg is laid with nectar and pollen in one cell and then sealed. In the photo above you can see the spiral of brood cells with the larger nectar and pollen cells around the edges.
For more information try these two websites,
also this magazine article,
