World Bee Day falls on May 20th, and since 2017, it has been a day to educate and celebrate all things bees! The date represents seasonal changes across the northern and southern hemispheres, with flowers blooming, pollination celebrated, and honey being harvested across the globe. It’s also a nod to Anton Janša’s birthday, an 18th-century Slovenian beekeeper dubbed the father of modern beekeeping.
World Bee Day’s theme is developed by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations every year. 2026’s theme is “Bee together for the people and the planet: A partnership that sustains us all”. In a time of rapid urbanisation and development, this World Bee Day aims to highlight just how important bees are to our lives, and how we can all come together to do our part for our fab-bee-lous pollinators.
Native Bees in Our Ecosystem
Bees play a vital role in the Australian ecosystem when it comes to propagating our natural landscape and agricultural sector. There are over 1,700 identified native bee species in Australia. While most people might think of the European honeybee and their iconic yellow and black stripes, Australian native bees come in all shapes and sizes, from the stunning blue-greens of the Neon Cuckoo bee to the tiny, 1-2 millimetre Quasihesma.
Many of Australia’s crops are introduced, so they thrive through pollinators like European honeybees. Native bees, however, are vital to maintaining our country’s biodiversity and the health of our native flora. Buzz pollination is something that introduced honeybees can’t do, which is when the insect uses their flight muscles to shake a flower to extract pollen. This is the kind of pollination 8% of the world’s flowering crops need, including tomatoes, kiwi fruits and blueberries. Without buzz pollination from native bees, these crops would struggle to thrive.
Threats to Australia’s Bees
Bees in Australia are facing many threats that are depleting population sizes and spread, which is critically damaging to Australia’s ecosystem. While urbanisation and development might be convenient for humans, a lack of biodiverse green spaces in urban areas means that bee colonies have less suitable habitats. Many of Australia’s native bees are solitary and rely on leaf litter and hollow tree matter to nest, and the removal of these natural materials reduces their habitat.
The honey bee is also facing an issue of its own: the varroa mite. The pest was discovered on Australia’s honeybees in 2023, and eradication efforts have since been abandoned, with a turn to management strategies instead. The varroa mite is deadly to honeybees and leaves little to no signs of infestation in a hive until the later stages, often leading to total hive collapse. The nature of the parasite also weakens the adult bees and larvae, leading to lower weight, physiological issues, and an increased risk of contracting other viruses.
While the mite poses a critical threat to honeybees, it also gives researchers a critical outlook onto how this species functions in Australia’s biosphere. As the varroa mite continues to thin feral honeybee populations, the effects of pollinator loss can be measured. Further, it’s an excellent opportunity to utilise the growing loss of an invasive species to propagate a variety of native pollinators through new hives and conserving viable habitat. Researchers suggest that, by removing honeybee hives from national parks in favour of native species, this window of honeybee loss can be utilised to strengthen our network of homegrown pollinators.
Creating Your Own Bee-autiful Garden Space
To celebrate World Bee Day, think about how you might create a haven for bees in your own backyard! To begin, think about how you can transform your outdoor spaces into suitable bee habitat, and what sorts of flora you could plant that invite native bees to visit.
Native bee ‘hotels’ are a great way to create habitat space in an urban setting. By utilising plant matter, like hollow bamboo of different sizes, or drilling holes into a log or spare wood, it gives native bees a place to call home.
You can further invite native bees into your garden by planting flowering natives. There are many options that bees love, and can bring fun variety to your green spaces at home. Trees like bottle brush and wattle can introduce great colour and height to your garden, while daisies, Australian bluebell and fringe lilies can be planted in pots for similar vibrance in smaller spaces. It’s important to consider the seasonal activity of your selected plants when planning, too, to ensure that different species of native bees have access to pollen and nectar year-round!
By celebrating World Bee Day and creating bee-friendly outdoor spaces, we can all play our part to keep Australia’s bees thriving and pollinating for years to come.
Article by Chiara Dakin
Image courtesy of World Bee Day (Australia)