One of PlantingSeeds’ missions – to support and propagate native bees – was the key focus of a recent Sydney Morning Herald and The Age feature. With mid-year’s World Bee Day generally shining the spotlight on the yellow and black European bee, we choose this time to promote our 1700 + native bee species to draw attention to their plight. Many native bee species are threatened, and we need them to support our native plants. They are also being shown to be helpful little pollinators with many agricultural crops. The SMH article interviewed PlantingSeeds’ Dr Judy Friedlander and other academics to shed light on how concern for European bees is ‘a sting in the love story for native pollinators’.
The story also featured an amazing animated video showing how a bee sees the world. It was specially created by PlantingSeeds’ supporter, Bruce Currie of Australian Museum fame, with invertebrate vision expertise by one-time PlantingSeeds’ researcher, Dr Bhavana Penmatcha.
As the article by environment and climate reporter, Caitlin Fitzsimmons, stated, ‘public attention on the plight of European honeybees could be coming at a cost for 1700 species of Australian native bees that also play a crucial role as pollinators’.
Supporting native bees through planting appropriate native plants, leaving natural ground cover and hosting some of our stingless social bees such as the Tetragonula carbonaria species (on the east coast of Australian from Sydney to the north) are key actions to support biodiversity and pollination.
The number of native bees and other insects is declining in nature because of changes in land use, people concreting or paving gardens, climate change and pesticide use.
Dr Katja Hogendoorn, of the University of Adelaide, said there were not enough native bees to pollinate all crops, so European honeybees (Apis Mellifera) were also needed – but they did not belong in nature. ‘Honeybees have a negative impact on our native bee populations,’ she said.
Dr Ros Gloag, of the University of Sydney, said that Australian flora has co-evolved with Australian bees and other insects, birds and mammals and we need to support all native species for richer and healthier biodiversity.
By Dr Judy Friedlander
Article Image scan of the Sydney Morning Herald, Friday 13th June, 2025