Bee behaviours

What types of bee behaviours should I look for?

Our citizen scientists need to observe their beehives regularly and look for key bee behaviours.

We're looking for signs that your stingless bee colony may be reproducing and establishing a new daughter colony. This only happens when a colony is strong, well-established and the environmental conditions are right.

Select (+) to see an image of these bee behaviours and discover what the bees are doing.

What are stingless bees?

There are 11 stingless bee species found in Australia. Nine of these are found in Queensland.

Australian stingless bees:

are similar to European honey bees because they both nest in large, eusocial colonies
make and store honey like European honey bees
live in colonies with a queen, her worker daughters and some male drones
nest in cavities: in the wild, this can be tree hollows or
in urban areas this can be in wall cavities, underground irrigation boxes or artificial cavities.

We know very little about the science of Australian stingless bees and how their colonies reproduce.

We need your help to observe stingless bee colonies in your backyard.

Bees establishing a new daughter colony

Bee leaving the nest with propolis on its hind legs — Click on the image to see a larger view.

This is a worker bee leaving the entrance to the nest carrying building material (propolis) on her back legs.

This is a sign that the colony is in the process of establishing a daughter colony somewhere else.

When this happens, there can be as many as 20 bees leaving the nest entrance carrying propolis per minute or as few as one or two leaving per minute.

The worker bees take this material to the location of the new daughter nest so they can construct it.

Bee carrying waste pellets

Bee leaving with waste pellet in jaws — Click on the image to see a larger view.

This is a worker bee leaving the nest carrying a waste pellet in her jaws.

Every time a young bee emerges from its cocoon to become an adult bee, the cocoon is chewed down into a single waste pellet.

This pellet is then carried by a worker bee outside the nest and dumped.

An average colony can remove up to 300–400 waste pellets from the nest per day.

If you observe bees carrying waste pellets out of the nest in their jaws, it is not a sign that the colony is establishing a daughter nest somewhere else.

Bees collecting pollen

Click on the image to see a larger view.

These forager bees are returning to the nest's entrance area with yellow pollen on their hind legs.

Bees collect pollen from flowers to feed their young.

Pollen contains many components that bees need for their nutrition especially protein and fats.

Pollen is often yellow in colour, but can be a range of different colours: white, orange, pink, blue and more.

It depends on the type of plant the bees have collected the pollen from.

Bees collecting resin

Bee returning to the nest with resin on its back legs — Click on the image to see a larger view.

The red arrow points to a forager bee returning to the nest's entrance area with resin on her hind legs.

This clear, sticky resin (sap) is collected by the bee from plant wounds and is used to construct a nest within the stingless bee colony.

The bees mix the plant resins with bees wax to make propolis, a building material used by stingless bees.

You can also see two bees with yellow pollen on their hind legs.

Bees with their abdomens full of nectar

Bee returning to the nest with abdomen full of nectar — Click on the image to see a larger view.

This is a flying forager bee with a swollen abdomen full of nectar about to land in the nest's entrance.

Stingless bees fill their stomachs with nectar at flowers.They then return to the nest where they regurgitate it and process it into honey by repeatedly regurgitating and swallowing.

This process helps to evaporate the water and to thicken the running nectar into sticky honey.

Honey feeds baby bees and is eaten by adults.

How do bees collect nectar?

Bees use their tongues to suck up nectar from flowers. Nectar is a sugary liquid that flowers produce to attract pollinators like bees. The sugar provides energy for bees.

Dead bees in pairs and groups

Dead bees on ground in pairs during fighting swarm — Click on the image to see a larger view.

Bees that die in a fighting swarm

These pairs and groups of dead bees are on the ground in front of a stingless bee colony.

They died in a 'fighting swarm.' This happens when the attacker and defender bees in a swarm grasp each other in the air in front of the nest.

They fall to the ground where they fight to the death and in the process, both bees can die.

Pairs or groups of dead bees clinging together on the ground in front of a stingless bee colony are a sign of fighting swarm activity.

This is different to a few single dead bees scattered on the ground in front of a nest.

Bees that die from old age

Each day, older worker bees die of old age, and some of these bees are dragged outside by other bees and dumped on the ground.

It is normal to see a few, single dead bees on the ground in front of a stingless bee nest each day. This doesn't indicate a fighting swarm.