John,
The small native bees like it warmer. In winter, they basically shut down,
their entrance is gummed up with propolis / tree sap & stuff and they reopen
once the weather warms up again. They do open up if you have a warm spell in
the cooler months too. The thing is with these bees they are subsistence
only so there is no practical or real harvesting of their honey. Even if
you tried, the structure of their nests do not lend themselves to easy
access. They just lump together the comb in sacs in no real given order so
there may be honey, pollen and brood all in the same area like a fruitcake
really - in contrast to the euro bees which have a bit more order.
There is a tree just up the street from me with a colony of the natives,
they face north and are doing really well. I stop and show my kids the
activity whan we walk to / from school. Great little bugs. My Dad also has
a hive, they have been there for 25 or more years in a log rescued from a
boiler fire wood heap.
Jock

"John Savage" wrote in message
om...
| Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish writes:
| I doubt it. The blue arsed bee (don't know it's proper name) nests in
| our brick wall. European honey bees use things like tree hollows (and
| compete for space and food with possums).
|
| While the mortar bee (I'm not sure that I'm correct with the name) is a
| native bee, it is a solitary bee, and not what people usually mean when
| speaking of the native honey bee. The latter is a tiny insect that lives
| in a colony of thousands, and most people would mistake it for a small
fly.
| In size it is something like that of a hover fly.
|
| Strangely, there is a push among some horticulturists for the
| introduction of the European bumblebee even though the native blue
| arsed bee is a much more effective pollinator.
|
| I have heard Tasmanian farmers say that a big advantage of the Euro bumble
| bee is that it continues to work even in dull showery weather, weather
| that sees the introduced honeybee down tools. I haven't noticed whether
| the blue-and-black-striped bee is an all-weather worker, have you? Also,
| have you got more than just one or two of them nesting in your mortar?
|
| Question to Len: do the native honey bees continue flying on dull, showery
| days?
| --
| John Savage (news address invalid; keep news replies in newsgroup)
|