Stingless bees are particularly fond of cut-leaf daisies that are a hardy ground cover and grow well across most of Australia. Everlasting daisies are also a great choice. Daisies also flower for a long time, which provides bees with nectar and pollen outside of the usual Springtime blooms.
Select flowers with a variety of colours and shapes.
-- Some prefer blue or purple flowers. However, mauve, pink, yellow and white flowers are also popular. -- Some native bees have strong preferences for a particular native flower. However many will happily visit a wide range of both exotic and native flowers.
Lavandula -- Lavender
The purple flower spikes of the lavender are particulary attractive to Blue Banded Bees. These are compact hardy shrubs that produce plenty of nectar and flower for a long period. Other herbs in this family, such as basil, thyme, lemon balm and mint are also very popular with native bees.
Some excellent plants to attract butterflies include bottlebrush, daisies, grevillea, lavender, and wattle. You can also entice them to lay eggs in plants such as crepe myrtle, snapdragons, and native violets.
Australia has over 1,700 species of native bees and 70% of these species build nests in the ground! Some, such as Blue Banded Bees and Teddy Bear Bees, dig shallow burrows in clay soil.
Native bees can be found in most of Australia's diverse habitats. Multitudes teem through the carpets of flowers in our heathlands and swarm around the blossoms at the tops of gum trees. Some species burrow into the desert sands, whilst others nest inside straggly trees near isolated waterholes.
All the other native bee species in Australia can sting. Most are too small to deliver an effective sting and Australian native bees are not aggressive. However, if one of the larger native bees is picked up or trodden on, it could be quite capable of stinging.
In Australia, honey bees, native bees and other native insects like hoverflies, wasps and butterflies provide essential pollination services for native plants, pastures, crops, fruits and vegetables.
They also like flowers like flat disks that they can land on, such as daisies. Good plants for butterflies include: Hardenbergia violacea, Goodenia species, Buddleija, verbena, salvias, native grasses, daisies, herbs and 'weedy' plants such as nettles.
The honey bees particularly loved the Camellias and Correas as the photos show. Other wintering flowering plants popular with bees include Banksia, Hebe, Hakea and Cherry Plum.
Bait Hive:
Placing an empty box in an area that may attract native bees to investigate and create a new colony inside the new box. Use Propolis (Native Bee Wax and Resin mixture) around the hive entrance and inside the box to make it more attractive to the bees.
Bees need honey to get through winter. This is their energy source to produce the metabolic energy to maintain the hive at 34°C throughout the colder or wetter period. But the biggest issue we have with bee colony deaths here in Australia – like overseas – is pests and diseases.
Check your local council by-laws prior to making the decision to keep honeybees. Under the Livestock Act 1997 (SA), you must register your hives with PIRSA. Registration is required regardless of the number, hive type, location or reason for keeping honeybees.
If you're looking for a border plant that will get the bees bussing in your garden, alyssum will be the answer! Their low-growing masses of honey-scented white blossoms are a pollinator magnet! Other bee-attracting annuals include Queen Anne's Lace, calendula, phacelia and daisies.
Stingless bees have been shown to be valuable pollinators of crops such as macadamias, mangos, watermelons and lychees. They may also benefit strawberries, citrus, avocados and many others. Tetragonula hockingsi stingless bees pollinate a crop of watermelons in Queensland. Photograph by Tom Carter.
In addition to native bees and honey bees, crops are visited and pollinated by a vast range of other insects including flies, butterflies, moths and beetles. These other species may visit crop flowers more frequently than bees.
Species of bees, beetles, flies, wasps, thrips, butterflies and moths are all successful pollinators.
The impact of these feral Honeybees on our native flora and fauna is controversial and difficult to quantify (see below) but they do provide valuable pollination services to farmers in many areas. European Honeybees are some of the most common bees that people notice in their gardens.
Topped lavender (Lavandula stoechas)
While this might be a fragrant, Australian cottage garden classic, it's actually native to Europe and the Mediterranean. If it escapes your garden, it can spread and take over the natural environment.
Attract and nourish honey bees with nectar producing plants. Wild flowers, including asters, goldenrod, sunflowers, even dandelions will provide food for the hives, and the native bee population as well. Plant flowering vegetables and fruits.
Australia's eleven species of stingless bees belong in the genera Tetragonula and Austroplebeia. (The Tetragonula bees were previously called Trigona -- why was their name changed?) Above: One of the spectacular photos of stingless bees in our Photo Galleries.
Varroa mite – the major threat to Australia's honey bee and honey bee crop pollination plant industries.
Feral European honey bees can outcompete native fauna for floral resources, disrupt natural pollination processes and displace endemic wildlife from tree hollows.