Native Bees
"Native Beeeze- Tracy presented a well researched and passionate presentation on how to promote & nurture Native Bees in your garden and their absolute importance for the pollination of our native flowering plants. The range of feedback really reflected how Tracy can relate to children and adults with humour, great repartee, facts and myth busting"
Lesley - South West Womens Health & Info Centre
Once you discover these incredible little bee-ings in your backyard I guarantee you will fall in-love with them as much as I have.
I've been a community native bee advocate, educating and spreading the awareness of them, since early 2012. Whether it's visiting primary schools, installing bee gardens and bee hotels in local areas or public speaking at garden clubs, large festivals and field days - each and very one of them has been with the same aim: to foster a natural fascination in our native bees and all backyard biodiversity, which can in turn inspire acts of nurturing and protection and lead to informed individuals contributing towards species conservation in their very own backyards.
Did you know that Australia has over 1600 different species of Native Bees, of which around 800 occur in Western Australia? In my garden I have counted over 35 species so far
When we talk of pollination services people often think of the honey bee that has become well established throughout Australia. However, this introduced species has only been on our continent for around 200 years. The native bee species in our gardens have been here co-evolving with our native flora for millions of years and have developed physical traits to forage the pollen and nectar from the diversity of flowers. They are therefore master pollinators to many of our native plants and are a critical part to the continued existence of our ecosystems diverse native flora species.
Native bee species differ greatly in appearance and behaviour. Some are tiny and inconspicuous, others large and strikingly attractive. Some are hairy and fuzzy like teddy bears, others are black and shiny and some are even black with polka dots! They are harmless to people and the females will only sting if caught, squeezed or prodded.
The native bees are mostly solitary, therefore they don’t live in a hive or have a social structure with a Queen and worker bees. The solitary female bee makes her own nest either in the ground or in cavities like old wood borer holes in tree trunks. After mating she carries out all the nesting duties by choosing the perfect location, preparing the nest, laying her eggs and collecting all food to store in the nest for her developing babies to eat.
Australia has a small number of social, stingless native bees that live in a hive and produce a small amount of bush honey each year. They do not occur in my region in the SW of Western Australia. All of the native bees in my garden are solitary or semi social and their role in the ecosystem is purely as pollinators. Pollination is actually just a handy side effect of their foraging.
These bee-utiful bee-ings are an exceptionally important part of our backyard and in fact, all of the Earth's ecosystems.
If you're keen to learn more and would like to host a Native Bee workshop, where you learn how to attract these to your garden and care for their every need, including how to make Bee Hotels, send me and email - click here
WHAT PEOPLE SAY
Emily Royce,
St Brigid's Primary School
Native Bee Sessions
2018
"The students were engaged and absolutely enthralled by these lessons, as were the teachers! The kids have spoken about these lessons many times and I’m often approached by students telling me about the activity now occurring in their bee hotels they got to make and take home. This was truly hands on, engaged learning at its best! I would highly recommend Tracy’s workshops to any school or other learning environment for a comprehensive, articulate, informative and enjoyable presentation"
Tracey Barnett Forest
Ashbil Community Garden
Native Bee Workshop
2020
"A wonderful morning filling my cup with like minded souls. Bringing us all together was the beautiful bee priestess Tracy enlightening us to the wonderful world of native bees.
Given all they do for us and how vital they are to our ancient land that they have been part of long before we emerged, we each got to create a little gift for them in the form of a bee hotel for our gardens. Thanks Tracy, the world needs more bee-utiful souls like you".
Busselton Dunsborough Environment Centre
Native Bee Workshop
2021
"The BDEC had the pleasure of engaging and working together with Tracy Lansdell to facilitate a Native Bee Gardens workshop for the Busselton community. Such was the interest we had participants from neighbouring towns attend as well.Tracy has exceptional knowledge of native bees and ways of attracting them into the garden and making bee hotels. The audience was captured by her presentation throughout the two hour workshop and we received very good feedback from many participants afterwards. We can highly recommend Tracy’s workshops on native bees and would love to work with her again in the near future"
Silke Rothkamm
