Food and housing crisis for Melbourne’s native bees

Food and housing crisis for Melbourne’s native bees

RMIT researchers have called on Melburnians to plant the right plants and create the right homes for native pollinators, for better tomato crops, more flowers and improved urban biodiversity.

As Melbourne’s gardens burst into life after a wet spring, native insects are out looking for flowers and pollen.

City gardeners rely on bees, butterflies and other insects to pollinate their plants, which is how flowering plants reproduce and grow fruit or seeds.

But these gardens often don’t have the right types of food and homes for these helpful native bees and flies, with knock-on effects for our gardens and for biodiversity.

RMIT urban ecologist Katherine Berthon has found only 43% of flowers in the Melbourne gardens she studied were being used by bees and other pollinating insects.

“Native bees, wasps, butterflies and other insects need food and shelter to make a life for themselves in the city but, just like us, they have preferences,” says Berthon, a PhD researcher with the Interdisciplinary Conservation Science Research Group (ICON Science).

“Some are really picky while others are more open-minded, so we have to provide the right flower buffet and nesting materials to encourage them to move in.”

Butterfly on flowers Pollinators like butterflies need the right food and shelter. Image: Emma Cutting

Berthon's research looks at urban gardens across the City of Melbourne, including the Royal Botanical Gardens and the Australian Native Garden in Royal Park, to see which plants are preferred by the native bees and honeybees, hover flies and butterflies, ants and wasps that call the city home.

Some of the most insect-friendly gardens are next to a park in South Melbourne off busy Moray St: the BEE Gardens, part of The Heart Gardening Project, a community initiative led by Emma Cutting.

“We’ve turned this space from a barren pollinator dead zone into a space that buzzes, wriggles and flourishes with all sorts of critters, like bees, birds, dragonflies and even lizards,” says Cutting.

“Native bees are absolutely vital to urban areas – they pollinate not only our native flora but also our veggies.”

These gardens are part of the Melbourne Pollinator Corridor, which will be an 8km community-led wildlife corridor linking the Royal Botanic Gardens to Westgate Park, welcoming native bees and other pollinating insects to travel through these urban and industrial areas.

Urban street garden. The Heart Gardening Project has transformed a pollinator dead zone into a thriving space. Image: Emma Cutting

For home gardeners, the key is to plant flowers with a variety of shapes and colours, and to work with neighbours to create your own bee-friendly neighbourhood.

Native insects prefer native flowers, especially local ones: native blue bells, daisies and even trees like eucalypts are favourites.

“From the perspective of a little insect that doesn’t travel very far, an urban garden can be like a whole city,” says Berthon.

"Even small garden spaces can offer really important homes and habitat, but good connections between gardens will really help our native insects thrive.”

The RMIT research was conducted in Melbourne and Munich, Germany, in partnership with the City of Melbourne, the Centre of Australian National Biodiversity Research (CSIRO) and the Technical University of Munich and funded by the Australian Research Council and the German Department of Education “Green Talents” Program.

 

Masthead image: Native bee, Katherine Berthon.

10 December 2021

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10 December 2021

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