I first observed this small native bee working my coriander flowers last week. Clearly it is different from the nine other bees found at ‘Bellis’, helping to pollinate crops.
Category: Beneficial Fauna
Sloppy ABC Reporting Could Harm Threatened Species
Letter to the editor, ABC News on line: “Regarding ‘Unwelcome bats just won’t beat it’, mere sensational reporting isn’t journalism. This report is misleading, and factually incorrect. The presence of starving, and stressed flying foxes outside their normal range is currently a result of famine in their natural range.
Queensland’s Flying Foxes Are Starving – Again
Pictured: driven by famine, a black flying fox drinks nectar from my banana flowers before sunset Bat Conservation & Rescue Qld President, Louise Saunders, is alarmed by the large number of reports about hungry flying-foxes staying by food trees through the day and not returning to their camps. “This is of huge concern as bats…
Honey Flora Report – June
Blue-banded bees are up early, busily pollinating our eggplants and tomatoes. Our potatoes and Phillip Island hibiscus are budding. Meanwhile our honeybees are zooming around gathering far and wide… AUSTRALIAN WILD PLANTS Broad-leaved Paperbark, Melaleuca quinquinervia Forest red gum, Eucalyptus tereticornis Spotted gum, Corymbia citriodora subsp. maculata (syn. C. maculata, Eucalyptus maculata) Brisbane wattle, black…
Native Bee Day
On Saturday I became the proud owner of a hive of native stingless bees, Trigona carbonaria. Damo had done some web-searching and found that Tim Heard, a CSIRO entomologist and native bee specialist, supplies colonies and his brother, Frank, makes specially designed hives for them. Stingless bees and honeybees happily co-exist. Happily Brisbane provides an…
Wynnum Honey Flora
Honeybee health A honeybee colony housed in an organic garden should radically improve pollination (and fruit set), but flowers in one backyard are insufficient to feed a strong colony of 30 – 80,000 honeybees. There’s no commercial horticulture or agriculture in or near the suburb, so the associated risk of pesticide poisoning is low. The…
Bee Day
It’s bee day. Damo has decided to keep honeybees and I’ve agreed to be his backup. I guess I’ll be a surrogate beekeeper. They’re just settling into their new home on our water tank.
A Beneficial Orgy
Sustainable gardens are safe havens for all sorts of activities, but I’ve never witnessed a scene like this. Last summer they did it amongst my pineapples. Last autumn they were hard at it in my sweet potatoes. This week it’s the cardamom that are the silent, involuntary witnesses. I can’t water these plants without wetting…
Mantis Mealtime
Hedge Grasshopper, Valanga irregularis Brown Praying Mantis, Archimantis latistyla Observed whilst pruning native raspberries last Friday morning.The mantis ate the grasshopper’s thorax and abdomen but left the gut intact…nice to see biological control in action.
