Apidae

JENNINGS, JOHN T., KROGMANN, LARS & BURWELL, CHRIS, 2013, Review of the hymenopteran fauna of New Caledonia with a checklist of species, Zootaxa 3736 (1), pp. 1-53 : 42-43

Apiformes ( Apidae )

In Australia there are more than 1,668 described species of bees, with many more undescribed ( ABRS 2013; Ken Walker, pers. comm.; Table 1). This contrasts starkly with 37 species described from New Zealand (Table 1) and 17 from New Caledonia ( Pauly & Munzinger 2003), although there are several undescribed species from New Caledonia (Ken Walker, pers. comm.). Pauly and Munziger (2003) compared data from New Caledonia with that of a number of islands in the Pacific and the Indian Oceans, and concluded that “The paucity of [the New Caledonian] fauna is paradoxical compared with the richness and endemicity of the island flora, but may be explained by the fact that the island was isolated before or soon after the emergence of the Apoidea about 130 million years ago”. This equates with the ‘museum model’ or ‘Noah’s Ark model’ of Murienne (2009).

Most bees in Australasia are solitary and do not produce honey or wax. The Australian bee fauna is dominated by the subfamily Colletinae , to which most of the Australian genera and more than half of the described species belong ( ABRS 2013). Colletines are solitary nesting bees although some species will nest in aggregations. Brood chambers are made in the ground, termite mounds, or within dead twigs, rotten logs or stumps (e.g., Stevens et al. 2007). The only Australian native eusocial honeybees are the few species of Austroplebia and Tetragonula which are stingless and restricted to the tropical or subtropical regions of the continent.

The introduced European honey bee, Apis mellifera L., is widely distributed in the Australasian region including New Caledonia.