Fun Stingless Bee Facts For Kids

Stingless bees are an insect that look similar to honey bees. Stingless bees belong to the animalia kingdom, the phylum is arthropoda, which is of the hymenoptera apidae family.

Australian stingless bees are not dangerous, but they don't like any disturbance in their colony. Most stingless beekeepers don't keep the Australian stingless bees for their nectar, but instead they do so for the delight of conserving a species whose unique living space is declining because of humans. Consequently, the honey bees pollinate garden blossoms, bushland, and crops during their quest for pollen and nectar. Australian stingless bees have become an increasingly attractive addition to the suburban backyard as they are harmless to humans. The utilization of stingless honey bees for crop pollination in Australia is as yet in its beginning phases. However, these honey bees show extraordinary potential.

Australian stingless bees usually use hollow trunks, underground cavities, rock crevices, tree branches, or termite nests to create their living spaces. They also make their nests in old rubbish bins, storage drums, wall cavities, and water meters. Stingless bees are not like other bees. They are different. The species of stingless bees are called jack.

Beekeeping is known as the maintenance of bee colonies, in human-made hives, by people. Numerous societies work on keeping stingless honey bees. The most seasoned model can probably be found in the Yucatan promontory of Mexico, where Mayans kept local stingless honey bees well before the Spaniards presented European bumblebees. Stingless beekeeping is known as meliponiculture and is a unique eco-friendly agro-practice.

Many beekeepers keep these bees in a box made of wood, as doing this makes their work of cleaning the hive easier. Few beekeepers keep them in flowerpots, coconut shells, bamboos, and other containers as a form of recycling.

These bees are active for the whole year, although they are less active in the winter season, with some species presenting diapause. Native stingless bees make their whole hive out of propolis which incorporates dust pots and nectar. The most common native bee swarms include mating swarms and fighting swarms. Fighting swarms are an amazing wonder where a solid colony of native stingless bees will track down a frail province to assault and dominate.

If you liked reading these facts, you can also check facts on click beetle or darkling beetle.

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What type of animal is a stingless bee?

Stingless bees (Melipona) are an insect that look similar to the honey bee, and the stingless bees belong to the apidae family and animalia kingdom.

What class of animal does a stingless bee belong to?

Stingless bees belong to the insecta class of animals and the genus trigona. These are divided into two genera which are audtroplebeia and tetragonula.

How many stingless bees are there in the world?

There are a total of 500 of stingless bees in the world. Stingless bees are native to Australia and belong to two groups, or genera, which are austroplebeia and tetragonula. Tetragonula bees were previously called trigona. There are 1,600 species of wild bees native to Australia, 14 of which are stingless.

These species have various names such as sugar-bag bees, sweat bees, native bees, and Australian native honey bees.

Where does a stingless bee live?

Stingless bee species (Melipona) live in subtropical or tropical regions of the world. They are found in the most subtropical or tropical regions of the world such as Africa, Southeast Asia, America, Australia and Madagascar. The majority of the native bees of Central and South America are stingless bees.

What is a stingless bee's habitat?

Stingless bees are found in underground cavities, tree branches, hollow tree trunks, or rock crevices.

Who do stingless bees live with?

Stingless bees live with their group in colonies. The head of the group is the queen bee who is dominant, the others are workers who lay the queen bees eggs. There are also drones are only live until the mating process. After this, the workers don't allow drones to come into the hive.

How long do stingless bees live?

A stingless bee lives for three years. The honey production by native bees occurs in their propolis, where they make their home. Beekeeping can help with honey development

How do they reproduce?

The queen bee and drone mate in the fight to reproduce, then the eggs are laid on top of a food mass in a single cell, which is then sealed. Worker bees then take care of the queen's offspring.

What is their conservation status?

The conservation status of stingless bees is Not Extinct. Still, deforestation, agriculture intensification, and the spread of exotic competing bee species are just a few of the main threats to some of the stingless bees species. Due to this, native bees can't produce honey and the stingless bee honey is a delight. The propolis, their hive, can be conserved with the help of beekeeping. The queens of the colonies of native bees give birth to eggs, and their nests host all these eggs. Then the native bees can start collecting nectar and transferring pollen. This will not only lead to honey but also the conservation of native bees.

What do stingless bees look like?

A stingless bee's body is separated into three parts which include the head, thorax, and abdomen. Like most insects, they have six legs, a forewing and a rear wing. They are black in color and are nearly 0.15-0.27 in (4-7 mm) long.

How cute are they?

Stingless bees are pretty cute. They are attractive to some people.

How do they communicate?

Stingless bees' method of communicating is very sophisticated. They dance to communicate, and this dance is done by walking vigorously, shaking their abdomen, and buzzing.

How big is a stingless bee?

They are roughly 0.15-0.27 in (4-7 mm) long and 0.3-0.11 in (1-3 mm) tall.

How fast can a stingless bee fly?

According to research, a stingless bees typical homing range is 13104 in (1092 ft), while the maximum returning range is 28020 in (2335 ft).

How much does a stingless bee weigh?

The weight of stingless bees is roughly 0.0002 lb (0.004 oz).

What are the male and female names of the species?

The name for both the male and female is meliponini.

What would you call a baby stingless bee?

Stingless bees babies are called stingless bee larvae.

What do they eat?

Stingless bees contribute to the pollination of crops such as mango, coconut, tomato, coffee, cucumber, strawberry, sweet pepper, avocado and cucumber.

Are they dangerous?

They are not dangerous and have become an attractive addition to suburban backyards. They are harmless to humans. As the name suggests, stingless bees do not sting unless they sense a potential threat to their habitat. A few stingless bees (in the genus oxytrigona) have mandibular secretions that cause painful blisters when they bite.

Would they make a good pet?

Yes, these bees can be kept as pets, but you need to be careful about keeping them. Few people suggest they can be kept as backyard pets.

Did you know...

Even though most of the European bumblebee colonies are bigger in size than native bees' colony sizes, the honey bee profitability can be very high. Australian stingless bees produce fewer amounts of honey in the warm weather of Australia.

Stingless bees mostly produce honey with a different bush taste which can be described as a mix of sweet and sour with a hint of fruit. This sour taste of the stingless bee honey is owing to the plant resins that the bees feed on. This honey can be used as a natural moisturizer for wound healing, and is very good for you.

Since they are non-aggressive, these bees can be reared even in crowded cities, provided they are given sufficient flowers at their disposal.

Melipona is the only genus of social stingless bees that have equal-sized cells for workers and queens. Both the stingless bees and the honey bees are classified as eusocial. Whereas the modern apini are small and morphologically, physiologically, and behaviorally uniform the meliponini evolved into a highly diverse tribe. This applies to their body size, colony size, nesting biology, brood cell-arrangement, queen production, foraging strategy and underlying recruitment mechanism, and other unexplored traits.

One of the best scholarly resources on stingless bees is by Imperatriz Fonseca et al, which gives plenty of information on the important plants for stingless bees. Stingless beekeeping is known as meliponiculture

How many stingless bee species are there?

Stingless bees are a large group of bees with about 500 species, comprising of the tribe meliponini (or subtribe meliponina according to some authors).

What are the castes of stingless bees?

There are different stingless Bees in a hive, and all have different jobs. The castes are queen, workers, and drones. The queen bees are known as the mother of most, if not all, the bees in the hive. The queen bee is an adult female bee with a dominant nature. Mating with the queen occurs during flight which requires excellent vision provided by the drones large eyes. Worker bees accomplish all the work left by the queen, which is every chore unrelated to reproduction. Worker bees select the future queen bees larvae, which should be nourished with a protein-rich secretion called royal jelly so that they can sexually mature. When the young worker bees arise from their cells, they tend to remain inside the hive, performing different jobs initially. They are female. Drones are the only male bees in the hive. Their work is solely to mate with the queen bee. A drone bee is the product of an unfertilized egg. The worker bee's job is to feed drones, preserve honey and carry in water. Soldier bees are of a defensive caste who are specialists that guard the nest entrance against intruders.

Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly animal facts for everyone to discover! Learn more about some other arthropods including Christmas beetle, or Africanized bees.

You can even occupy yourself at home by drawing one of our stingless Bee coloring pages.

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