One of the most awe-inspiring activities we do at PlantingSeeds is to split native bee Tetragonula carbonaria (Tc) hives every 18 months to two years.
This is to provide hives of this extraordinary bee to schools on the B&B Highway – a way of paying it forward.
We have been fortunate this year to have received ‘splitting’ help from native bee researchers from the BEE lab at the University of Sydney. The BEE lab explores topics related to bees, including evolution, pollination, and microbiology, and they hope that their new relationship with PlantingSeeds will provide them with more data to help answer these questions.
In the ‘wild’, the Tc bees will often find new places such as hollow logs and tree cavities to establish new colonies in. So, our splitting simulates this process.
Our splitting process involves dividing the hive brood (found inside the specially made timber structures) into two, ensuring there are queen bees or princess bee cells inside both halves, and then placing the second ‘new’ split colony into boxes that are specially made.
The latest hives are also benefitting from new rooves, thanks to the support of Responsible Wood and its community grants program. This year, the Hunters Hill Men’s Shed helped us with our ‘Topping it Off’ project, and the state of the art roof tops could win national design awards!
PhD student Georgie Brennan is studying the evolutionary ecology of generalist pollination systems in native plants. She is especially interested in the pollination ecology of eucalypts (Eucalyptus, Angophora, and Corymbia), particularly because they attract a huge diversity of native bees and other insects. There are more than 900 eucalypt species in Australia and many elements of their reproductive strategies, including the extent to which they rely on invertebrate pollinators, remain misunderstood.
‘Many native bees visit eucalypts for pollen and nectar – but they are also important landmarks for them to find mates,’ Georgie says. ‘I’m curious about how the diverse foraging and mating behaviours of bees might overlap to influence how they act as pollinators too.’
PhD student Genevieve Law is researching drivers of speciation (the process of formation of new species) in Australian stingless bees. This involves looking at the genetic differences between different populations and species of stingless bees and investigating the causes and consequences of those differences.
‘Factors like genetic differences, relationships with other species, and their environment can all shape the formation of new species. Determining what factors have impacted the evolution of a species can be a bit like solving a puzzle’, says Genevieve. ‘It is important that we try to answer these questions for stingless bees, as they are being utilised more and more in pollination services and even as pets. This is causing greater movement of hives between regions, which may potentially have negative impacts on these species.’
Says Genevieve: ‘While assisting with splitting colonies with PlantingSeeds, I have been sampling pieces of brood that contain queen cells, which allows us to raise these queens and use them in behavioural experiments. In nature, the stingless bee ‘princesses’ that hatch from queen cells briefly leave their hives to mate, then return to lay eggs, if their colony requires a new queen.’
The stingless bee colony is made up of the single reproductive queen, princess bee cells, many female workers that maintain the hive, and seasonal males whose primary role is reproduction. There is a real variation in the number of princess bee cells – with some hives seemingly having less than five and others having more.
Georgie says that working with PlantingSeeds has been valuable because the stingless bee hives placed in schools throughout the B&B Highway are in many different environments, thus impacting how the bees build their homes. ‘Every colony constructs their hive slightly differently, so it's always interesting to see this variation and how it changes across locations’.
Additionally, she said, ‘wild’ bee nests are also of great interest to bee researchers, however the inner structures of these are much more difficult to access without damaging them.
Leading the University of Sydney research group is Dr Ros Gloag, who earned her PhD in Zoology from The University of Oxford. Her research focuses on the evolutionary ecology and genomics of social insects, especially Australian native stingless bees. Dr Gloag studies how native bee populations respond to changing climates, how invasive honeybees adapt, and the genetics behind sex determination in social insects.
The partnership between PlantingSeeds and the University of Sydney researchers is a true example of a symbiotic relationship—hands-on community work and academic
research supporting and strengthening each other.
At PlantingSeeds we are proud to work alongside Dr Gloag and the University of Sydney team. Their expertise in native stingless bees, invasive honeybees, and pollinator ecology gives our programs a solid scientific backbone, helping us make informed decisions that truly benefit the environment.
By integrating innovative research into initiatives like our B&B Highway program, we can strengthen habitat corridors, support threatened pollinators and bring real science into schools and community projects.
Everyone involved, from researchers to volunteers, is learning, growing, and making a real impact. With each hive split, each corridor strengthened, and each student or volunteer inspired, we’re proving that when science and community come together, positive change is not just possible—it’s already happening.
Article by Cora Kemp