Trigona carbonaria is a stingless bee endemic to Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. Their common name is Sugarbag bee. The bee is known to pollinate the orchid

Orchidaceae

The Orchidaceae, commonly referred to as the orchid family, is a morphologically diverse and widespread family of monocots in the order Asparagales. Along with the Asteraceae, it is one of the two largest families of flowering plants, with between 21,950 and 26,049 currently accepted species,...

s Dendrobium lichenastrum

Dendrobium

Dendrobium is a huge genus of orchids. It was established by Olof Swartz in 1799 and today contains about 1,200 species. The genus occurs in diverse habitats throughout much of south, east and southeast Asia, including the Philippines, Borneo, Australia, New Guinea, Solomon Islands and New Zealand...

, D. toressae, and D. speciosum

Dendrobium speciosum

Dendrobium speciosum is not only a widespread Australian orchid but also a very variable orchid, forming a species complex. Its varieties can be found in wildly varying habitats as an epiphyte or a lithophyte in a continuous distribution along the east coast of Australia and in distinct...

. It has been identified as an insect that collects pollen from the cycad

Cycad

Cycads are seed plants typically characterized by a stout and woody trunk with a crown of large, hard and stiff, evergreen leaves. They usually have pinnate leaves. The individual plants are either all male or all female . Cycads vary in size from having a trunk that is only a few centimeters...

, Cycas media

Cycas media

Cycas media is a palm-like tall shrub native to woodlands of Queensland, Australia. The leathery, thick leaves are divided and grow from the center in a palm-like arrangement. All plant parts are considered highly toxic. However, the seeds are eaten by Aborigines after careful and extensive...

.

T. carbonaria forms honeycomb

Honeycomb

A honeycomb is a mass of hexagonal waxcells built by honey bees in their nests to contain their larvae and stores of honey and pollen.Beekeepers may remove the entire honeycomb to harvest honey...

s in their nests. The bee produces a consumable honey

Honey

Honey is a sweet food made by bees using nectar from flowers. The variety produced by honey bees is the one most commonly referred to and is the type of honey collected by beekeepers and consumed by humans...

 where the whole nest is sometimes eaten by Indigenous Australians

Indigenous Australians

Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. The Aboriginal Indigenous Australians migrated from the Indian continent around 75,000 to 100,000 years ago....

. The bees "mummify

Mummy

A mummy is a body, human or animal, whose skin and organs have been preserved by either intentional or incidental exposure to chemicals, extreme coldness , very low humidity, or lack of air when bodies are submerged in bogs, so that the recovered body will not decay further if kept in cool and dry...

" invasive small hive beetle

Small hive beetle

The small hive beetle is a beekeeping pest.Endemic to sub-Saharan Africa, the small hive beetle, Aethina tumida was first discovered in the United States in 1996 and has now spread to many U.S. states including, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Minnesota,...

s (Aethina tumida) that enter the nest by coating and immobilizing the invader in wax

Beeswax

Beeswax is a natural wax produced in the bee hive of honey bees of the genus Apis. It is mainly esters of fatty acids and various long chain alcohols...

, resin

Propolis

Propolis is a resinous mixture that honey bees collect from tree buds, sap flows, or other botanical sources. It is used as a sealant for unwanted open spaces in the hive. Propolis is used for small gaps , while larger spaces are usually filled with beeswax. Its color varies depending on its...

and mud or dirt from the nest.

External links

• The Mysterious Fighting Swarms - Anne Dollin, Australian Native Bee Research Centre, December 2008
• No worker reproduction in the Australian stingless bee Trigona carbonaria Smith (Hymenoptera, Apidae) - R.S. Gloag, M. Beekman, T.A. Heard and B.P. Oldroyd (2008) Insectes Sociaux 54: 412-417