Store-bought bee hotels doing more harm than good for native species
When Marc Newman's wife brought home a new bee hotel from a local hardware store, he knew it was going to attract trouble.
The 86-year-old had spent almost 20 years building the wooden structures that help support native bee numbers across Queensland's Darling Downs and knew the particular specifications they required.
The Toowoomba local said, like many cheap imports, the store-bought bee hotel fell short.
He had to drill larger holes to protect native bees from predators like wasps and also painted or replaced some of the timber he suspected had been treated with toxic chemicals.
Mr Newman said it was disappointing that unsuitable pre-made hotels were still being sold.
"What happens is the bees don't use those hotels and people get disillusioned," he said.
"It's on the internet all the time, people have bought the hotel and it's not the right design."
As more Australians become aware of the need to protect native bee species, many are buying cheap pre-made hotels to set up in their backyard.
University of Southern Queensland postdoctoral researcher Kit Prendergast said these hotels had many flaws, meaning they were either not suitable for native bees, or could cause them harm.
"Some are metal cans with things stuck into them and they can get very hot," she said.
"Other are just containers stuffed with twigs, leaves, pine cones and any sort of natural woody material, which the bees won't use."
Dr Prendergast said bee hotels needed to be carefully designed to attract native bees.
"You want holes that are less than 10 millimetres in diameter and longer than 10 centimetres, [without] splinters," she said.
"You want untreated materials, so ones that haven't been imported from overseas and treated with chemicals."
According to the Australian Native Bee Association (ANBA), more needed to be done to help protect the estimated 1,700 native bee species.
ANBA chair Megan Halcroft said there was currently no national monitoring scheme for native bees.
"We don't know the health status of our native populations of insects," Dr Halcroft said.
"We've done no research and we've got no baseline data to compare with.
"If you don't know what you've started with, you can't know if you've lost numbers or if you've increased numbers."
Dr Halcroft said Australia was behind other first world countries when it came to monitoring.
"It's only in the last few years that there has been an increase in awareness [of natives] within the broader community, councils, and a little bit in government," she said.
Mr Newman said the community's interest in native bees had grown since he first became involved in 2006.
He now passes on his knowledge to others, often posting his bee hotel specifications online.
"I started off doing all the wrong things and ended up hopefully doing it right," he said.
Dr Halcroft said people interested in protecting native species should stay away from common European honey bees.
"Honey bees are not native to Australia at all, they are very competitive," she said.
"There's a lot of competition out there and we don't need more invasive species."
Only 11 species of native Australian bees make honey.
Native bees play a critical role in the environment by pollinating native plants, many of which cannot be pollinated by introduced bees.
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