Bee amazed

With international tourism shut down, Covid has consequently supercharged Australian domestic tourism into the northern coastal roads of WA. The result is exceptional convoys of 4wds, caravans, and booked out coastal campsites.

We escaped the pressures by diving inland for 300kms to the Kennedy Range National Park. Spring is in full bloom, putting on a magnificent display of flowers at gorgeous Temple Gorge campsite. Magic to be here.

We walked a couple of trails at the foot of the escarpment, leading through massive, scented drifts of yellow, white, and everlasting flowers to the honeycombed, sheer cliff faces of aptly named Honeycomb Gorge.

The trail follows a stony creek bed to a large amphitheatre containing a seasonal waterfall and pool. We marvelled at the honeycomb cavities that have been eroded into the cliff face.

Our real quarry was one of the largest native bees, Dawson's Burrowing Bee, unique to this area. By chance, the camp host knew where the creatures were, on the fringes of a claypan, just off the road.

Next morning, we excitedly found the track to the claypan. From afar, we could hear the loud droning of the bees and see stands of their favorite flower, the Blue Bell Flower.

The bees were in communities of little excavated mounds with mud lined hollow centres, all along the claypan. There was constant bee traffic as the insects arrived with pollen, then dived into the holes, excavated, wrestled, and some had died on the job. How exciting to see this wonder of nature.

The bees' life cycle starts in July and involves the alpha males emerging from burrows first. Then a couple of months later, the females emerge to the mother of all battles as the huge, aggressive alpha males fight to the death to be the one to mate. Most of the males and even a few females die in the process.

The fertilised females then excavate a 35cm tunnel into the claypan in aggregations of scores to hundreds of burrows and construct brood chambers. The chamber walls are waxed, the young laid, and a store of nectar and pollen added for nourishment when the young emerge 11 months later.

Their job done, the female bees then die by September.

All around the claypan is beautiful bushland full of spring flowers with singing doves, finches and whistlers. Crowning the glory is the backdrop of the soaring escarpments of the ranges.

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Kennedy Range National Park, Temple Gorge, Honeycomb Gorge, Dawson's Burrowing Bees, Western Australia; Wildflowers; Desert Bloom