“The issue is that honeybees can forage at temperatures much lower than our native bees, so they start earlier in the day, and they have a very efficient recruitment strategy, so they go to the best resources very, very quickly and deplete them. They need an inordinate amount of food to maintain a colony.”

Another recent study, by Dr Kit Prendergast, of Curtin University, also found that a greater number of honeybees harmed native bees by increasing mortality of progeny and skewing sex ratios to have more males.

Friedlander said beekeepers were allowed in many national parks, including in NSW and Victoria, where they directly compete with native species.

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The number of native bees and other insects was declining in nature because of changes in land use, people concreting or paving their gardens, and pesticide use. Friedlander said people could help by hosting native beehives and planting a variety of native flowers to bloom throughout the year, including some purple flowers for species that favour this colour.

Friedlander’s PlantingSeeds is propagating native bees in four states of Australia, including more than 750,000 native sugarbag bees (Tetragonula carbonaria), one of 11 social native bees that live in hives and make honey but are stingless.

Seventy per cent of native bee species live in the soil, and PlantingSeeds also makes homes for the ground-dwelling blue-banded bee (Megilla cingulata).

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