Before Christmas, I borrowed a couple of books about beekeeping from the local library network. I wanted to learn to identify the bees in my photographs.
books borrowed from the library (Nokia Lumia 520)
The universe thought I wanted a swarm of my own for on my next walk, down the lane by our house, I encountered a very busy hollow in a roadside tree. No thanks.
The first thing I learned was that…
“In Australia, the name European honey bee is used to denote the Italian, Caucasian, Carniolan and dark German races of bees.”
(Robert Owen: the Australian Beekeeping Manual)
The book has lots of stunning pictures but I found it is next to impossible to identify the bee on my lilac-coloured rose. The first European bees weres introduced to Australia in 1822.
Robert Owen goes on to say…
“While the original four races of bees often have a different colour and possess different characteristic, the Australian honey bee is a mongrel mix of the four races.”
came out of the flower when I disturbed it, but flew back for more pollen
seemingly looking for something – the heart of the flower, perhaps?
The Italian honey bee has more of a yellow or straw colour than either the Caucasians or Carniolan bees. Turns out that most of our feral honey bees are genetically linked to Apis mellifera mellifera – the dark German bee, which is actually native to large areas of Europe.
Anyway, specific identification is near impossible then.
nope, not there… (Nikon D3000)
I wonder if the second book encourages me to keep stingless bees for sugarbag honey – whatever that is. Sounds intriguing. I’ll let you know.
🙂
Christine R 
Thanks for the pictures, I will show Julius. I only thought ‘sugar bag’ was a type of ant, didn’t know it was a bee as well
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Hi Sue, you must not be logged in or using a different device? My blog isn’t recognising you. I tell you what, a lot of the stingless bees look like ants!
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Seeing as my comment never came up I thought I would submit my email again, it’s still connected. Couldn’t remember what you said to do and I don’t know what the icons are for, i don’t have social media sites.
H E L P
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On the signin page (it’s annoying how everyone wants you to sign in using a socail media account these days!) go to ‘forgot your password’. That way you can get a notification with your log in details or a link to get back into the WordPress system. If that doesn’t work – just know that it is waiting for me to manually approve it.
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Wow.The clarity is superb her.I had no idea about any bees (hardly) than our own. Thanks for sharing. Most interesting, Christine. 🙂 ❤
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Glad you liked, Tess. 🙂
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