Bees are the darlings of the insect world and this weeks marks the launch of our Stingless Bee program at Little Scholars Ashmore and Little Scholars Yatala
What are Stingless Bees
Stingless native bees enable children to safely explore, engage, learn and experience close up the social behaviours of the bee, an awareness of the impact of human activity on the environment and the interdependence of living things.
As an added bonus the bees will pollinate the gardens and your school will be aiding the conservation of the native bee. The keeping of stingless bees is easy and does not require any special expertise , equipment or licence. The hive needs to be located in complete shade, the bees will forage in the garden darting back and forth laden with pollen.
This is a great program to have and to teach our Little Scholars and encourage them to have respect for our environment by understanding how important our bees are for pollinating Australia’s wild flowers and their small size enables them to reach pollen in tiny flowers that bigger bees cannot reach.
These captivating and useful insects are the subject of a new wave of beekeeping. Thousands of people are new converts to keeping these bees as pets, for small-scale home honey production and for pollination.
Without native bee’s, lots of our native trees which can only be pollinated by little bee’s, could not survive and would not be here so… lets give our native bees a big cheer!
Our bee’s have settled in very nicely and we have created the most amazing environment for them.
Native Bees- The Perfect Pet
While bees won’t show you love in the same way a dog or cat would, they have the added bonus of being low maintenance, supplying you with honey, pollinating your flowers and vegie garden and helping to save the the planet. Native Bees are a small, black and stingless so great to have with children around, plus having no sting means our Little Scholars can harvest the honey themselves without getting hurt. They produce around 1 litre of delicious honey a year that tastes a little more tangy than store brought honey with a hint of lemon or eucalyptus.
Who can have a native bee hive
Anyone can have a native bee hive. All you need, apart from the hive, is a nice place in full shade to place the hive with a flight path that is free from any obstacles including trees, branches and spider webs.
