Josh is in Perth’s Kings Park where the native plants attract native bees. Kit Prendergast is a native been researcher. She says that when people talk about bees, they usually mean European honeybees and forget the 2000 bee species that are native to Australia.

Native bees are really important for Australia’s native flowers because they have co-evolved together over millions of years, so are perfectly suited to pollinating local plants.

The key difference is native bees are mainly solitary rather than living in social colonies.
Each female can reproduce; they collect nectar and pollen, build a nest, lay an egg on it, close up the nest and then leave.
Some do live in groups of 3-10 and provide some degree of care to their offspring.
There are 11 species of ‘sugarbag’ bees in Australia that live in colonies like honeybees, with a queen and her daughters and workers.
Kit has been installing bee hotels in gardens and parks as part of her PhD. In one there are four holes occupied by one of the Megachile species of bees that cap their nests with resin that is collected from trees.

The nests may have a number of cells, with up to 12 individual eggs, each with its own stash of nectar and pollen. The whole nest is then sealed it off with resin to protect it from the weather and parasitic wasps.

Bee hotels provide artificial nesting sites for bees in areas where there may not be enough natural borer holes in trees. To make a hotel, simply drill a few different-sized holes in a block of wood and install it in a tree at about eye level. The holes should be between 3mm and 10mm wide – any larger and the bees won’t use it.

Bees love plants in the pea family (Fabaceae) such as stinkwood (Jacksonia sternbergiana) as well as species of Daviesia, Gompholobium and Hardenbergia. The stinkwood is often visited by the Megachile bees that are likely to use your bee hotel, and not by honeybees, so planting it will make your garden more welcoming.

Other plant species that native bees like includes daisies, such as Swan River daisy (Brachyscome iberidifolia cv.), fanflowers (Scaevola sp.) and members of the myrtle family: Kunzea sp., Callistemon sp., Melaleuca sp., and Eucalypts.

Kit is researching the plants that native bees visit, how they’re responding to urbanisation and the importance of remnant plant patches.

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