Story: Beekeeping

Collecting honeydew

Honeybees look for sustenance from sources other than flowers. This bee is collecting honeydew secreted by scale insects on a black birch tree.

Using this item

Natural Sciences Image Library of New Zealand

Reference: Be0043smt.tif

by Peter E. Smith

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How to cite this page

Allan Gillingham, Beekeeping – Bee species, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/15759/collecting-honeydew (accessed 4 June 2026).

Story by Allan Gillingham, published 1 March 2009.

Comments

Star
21 January 2018

Thakyou for this website. A suggestion for a major improvement: Where you have your list of the varying types of bees in NZ, you need an image of the bee also. Its lazy not to have the images. Thankyou.