As a suburban gardener, I would quite like to have bees to assist pollination in the suburbs. However I think my neighbours with children would be less than keen on my keeping bees on the other side of the fence. I am also allergic, as are many of my family.
My question to other gardeners is, why don’t YOU have a bee hive?
I am curious to know if any gardeners don’t grow/raise bees due to the cost, as I would be interested in sponsoring a local bee hive in a more suitable location and maybe other people are too.
Such a good question, indeed. Now, as I answered in my blog: honeybees aren’t native to North America, and they’re prone to a host of diseases and pests. I’m much more interested in encouraging the wild, native bees in our area, which include leafcutter bees, bumbles, various other species, and even the bee-mimics, all of which also are crucial in pollinating. So I plant lots of pollinator friendly plants, encourage some wildflowers to grow in some spots of our property, grow clover in the lawn, don’t fret over the dandelions…and am an organic gardener, so as not to disturb the good creatures (who help to control the ‘bad’ ones nicely). We eat honey daily, but I buy that from a local beekeeper who I’ve been dealing with for years; he has the skills to look after his honeybees health whereas I don’t. So he tends his honeybees and I do what I can for the native bees, and hopefully it all helps in the long run. That’s my story, anyway…:-)
We apparently have 1600 species of bees in Australia, 14 of which are without a sting (see Wikipedia entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stingless_bee ).
The commerical bees here are these ones http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_honey_bee
I know what the native bees I see look like (I believe they are stingless because of their shape), but haven’t found an entry which looks the same. The closest is this one http://www.zeta.org.au/~anbrc/homalictus.html
or these ones
http://davidavid.blogspot.com/2007/10/inside-hive.html
They are very very small, and have a hover-motion which reminds me more of a dragonfly than a bee, pure stillness, aside from the wings. They are scaredy cats too, avoiding people.
There’s a guide to local bees in Australia:
http://www.zeta.org.au/~anbrc/beesinyourarea.html
We also get a bee-looking nasty called the European Wasp http://www.lga.sa.gov.au/site/page.cfm?u=283
These are relatively new, they’ve become a common infestation in my lifetime.