Honey bees vs native bees in the MPC
I have had countless conversations over the years with people who think that honey bees are Australia’s native bees.
This creates an interesting challenge for us at Heartscapes rolling out the Melbourne Pollinator Corridor (MPC) because, though people are aware that it is for our native pollinating insects, they think that we are designing for honey bees.
(FYI our native pollinating insects include native bees, butterflies, moths, wasps, flies and some beetles and ants but we are focussing on native bees in this post.)
At Heartscapes we love and respect honey bees and the increased awareness of the existence of native bees that has emerged over the past few years is awesome. However, I can see this confusion between honey bees and native bees causing problems for our native bees, the main reason being because designing for honey bees isn’t enough for our native bees.
Having honey bees around doesn’t necessarily mean our native bees are ok.
You see, native bees require more specific and intentional design when it comes to their forage (food supply) and habitat in general. So when people see honey bees in their garden and they think that they are doing a great job attracting native wildlife, our native bees are potentially missing out.
And it can get worse. For both native bees and honey bees.
The other day I spoke to a couple who had not only completed a bee-keeping course, they had bought a hive (of honey bees) for their balcony, thinking they were doing great work for the Melbourne Pollinator Corridor. This is incredible dedication of course but, especially seeing as they didn’t create any new forage, what they were really doing was putting more pressure on local native bees and adding to the existing problem of too many honey bee hives in the city.
So I thought I would compare native bees and honey bees side by side to hopefully help increase awareness of these gorgeous critters, perhaps help with some basic identification between honey bees and native bees and clarify why the design we use for the Melbourne Pollinator Corridor is so important.
So what critters are we talking about?
Honey bees (Apis mellifera) are an introduced agricultural animal.
Native bees (Australia has an estimated 2000 species) are an integral part of our ecosystems. They are extremely diverse varying in size, colour, tongue length, how they collect pollen, flight patterns, where and how they nest….the list goes on….
Types of Forage
Honey bees are generalists which means they will forage on many types of flowers. Not only are honey bees generalists, they are massive generalists. There are very few flowers they won’t visit. They will visit flowers from:
Exotic plants (from outside Australia)
Native plants (from anywhere in Australia)
Indigenous/endemic plants (from the specific area within Australia)
Native bees have evolved over millenia alongside our native flora so many species have developed particular relationships, for instance with a Family of flora (eg Myrtaceae) or even with a particular plant species. As well as being specialists, native bees can be generalists (with certain species foraging on some exotic and native plants) but even the native bees that are generalists don’t seem to be as general as honey bees.
Where do they live?
Honey bees live in colonies up to 80,000 strong. These colonies live in man-made hives but can also go “wild”, taking up residence in various random spaces including tree hollows. It is often these wild or feral honey bees that are mistaken for native bees.
Though there are a few species of native bees that do live in colonies and produce honey, most of our native bee species are solitary and nest either in the ground or in various types of small cavities. In Melbourne there are no species of native bees that live in colonies.
Travel distance
Honeybees can travel up to 5km from their hives.
Depending on their size, native bees will travel only 50m - 500m from their nests.
Temperature
Honeybees start foraging at around 13 degrees Celcius.
Native bees need the day to be warmer to get going and start their day at around 18 degrees Celcius.
A few other points of difference:
Native bees do not need a water source like honey bees.
Native bees fly a lot faster than honey bees which, in comparison, look like lumbering elephants in the air.
Only the male native bees sting and they don’t die after a sting like honey bees do.*
So!
Native bees…
require more diversity in forage, preferring indigenous-focussed gardens
require habitat closer together so they can move around easily
have less time in the day in which to forage
have more varied nesting requirements
As habitat for our native bees is disappearing at the rate of knots, it is vital we design for them intentionally where ever we can inside and outside cities but with cities growing it is imperitive we add their needs into the urban matrix.
By designing for native bees first with their more particular needs, we are giving them a great chance at survival ……and rest assured honey bees will also be present which is great too!
5 tips to help your native bees - these are pretty general but will be a great start…
What suits them best overall is an indigenous-focussed garden which is a site of mostly indigenous plants with a few natives and exotics. If in doubt visit your local indigenous nursery!
Make sure there are plants that are flowering particularly in early spring (when the new adults are emerging) and late autumn.
In Melbourne native bees die off over winter so your flowering plants in the colder months will be for the other important pollinating insects such as flies!
Provide different substrates (eg soil, sand, pebbles, path topper, rocks) at varying heights for ground-nesting bees
Provide properly made bee hotels for cavity-nesting bees (see earlier posts on how to do this).
For more tips and handy hints on native bees and how to create a garden for them you can purchase Emma’s book The Melbourne Pollinator Corridor Handbook here
*A note on stinging - Honey bees and native bees will only sting if really provoked like being trodden on or squeezed between the fingers. Though I am sure it will happen at some point, in almost ten years of mucking around in gardens full of honey bees and native bees I haven’t been stung by one yet.