The hum of bees drifts over the fences of a quiet suburban street, where hives sit tucked behind garden gates. Sunlight glints off golden frames as Peter Compton carefully lifts a lid, watching the workers buzz across the comb.

Driven by concern for the environment, and with homemade honey to sweeten the deal, backyard beekeeping is booming. Thousands of Australians across the country are donning gloves and veils to care for hives just outside the door.

But there’s a sting to the tale. Scientists warn that while home hives can boost local pollination and honey production, they may also compete with native bees and disrupt delicate ecosystems, raising questions about the true impact of this growing hobby.

We have been told to “save the bees”, but what if our attempts to do so are having the opposite effect? Experts are debating whether honeybees belong in backyards as beekeeping has expanded across the country.

As of September 1, 4499 registered amateur and commercial beekeepers in Western Australia reported managing approximately 51,700 hives, according to data tracked by the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD). There were only 1127 in 2015, with numbers more than tripling over the past decade.

According to the CSIRO, native bees are solitary and non-social, unlike honeybees, but they are essential for pollinating thousands of native plants in our different ecosystems and numerous crops.

Wheen Bee Foundation reports that Australia is home to around 2000 species of native bee, which have co-evolved with unique native flora over thousands of years. The extinction of any one of these species could drastically affect some native plants, which could alter Australia’s unique ecosystems.

The Western Australian Apiarists’ Society says that as bees are considered livestock, there are a number of legal obligations governing beekeeping, even for hobby beekeepers. The primary requirement as a new beekeeper is that you register your hives with the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development and obtain a registered hive brand, which you then apply to all your hive boxes.

Society president Adam Maskew says he decided to start keeping bees with his daughter after seeing all the news stories about declining bee populations.

“I have three production hives in my suburban backyard in Bunbury. My daughter was 10 or 11 and she was seeing the messages about declining bee populations and the need for pollination, and so we bought our first hive together, and from there, we started keeping bees,” Maskew says.

“It’s nice to have some beehives that help with the pollination of our fruit and veg and to have some honey to be able to share with the family.”

Maskew says native bees and European honeybees play different roles in our environment.

“The bees that people keep in their backyard are not native bees but honeybees, and their role is really around pollinating, and a lot of the food we rely on and grow in our backyards is best pollinated by these European honeybees,” he says.

“The role that a good, responsible backyard beekeeper plays is in ensuring the health and productivity of their hive and trying to reduce the number of feral hives that occur in their neighbourhood.”

The key to a healthy balance between native bees and honeybees is being responsible backyard beekeepers. If people aren’t doing the right thing, that’s when there can be ecological damage.

“When we talk about responsible beekeeping, we also talk about making sure that their hobby doesn’t impact the broader community,” Maskew says.

“Making sure that you understand what you’re doing, that you receive some training, that you have a bee buddy, that you manage your hive and that you maintain a nice gentle strain of bees so that they don’t impact others.

“There are many training courses for people to undergo; the apiarists’ society has a really neat introductory course on responsible beekeeping.”

Australian native bees don’t store nectar, and therefore generally don’t produce honey. European honeybees were introduced into Australia about 200 years ago for that exact reason: to produce honey.

Native bees pollinate native plants, many of which can’t be pollinated by European honeybees. Some flowers need vibration to release pollen, which many of our native bees can do.

Scott Egan began backyard beekeeping about seven or eight years ago, sparked by curiosity and a hands-on hobby he can share with friends.

“A couple of my friends were into it, so I came along one day and thought I’d have a go. I enjoyed it and then wanted to start doing it myself. My wife and friends bought me a beehive for my birthday,” he says.

When the family first moved into their suburban block, Egan said there were bees around the trees but when they were cut down, beehives started popping up.

“You don’t want people to have 20 hives in their backyard; that wouldn’t be good for the neighbourhood. But a few hobby people having a few hives around, I think, is a good thing. A good thing for the neighbourhood, a good thing for the environment,” he says.

While Egan approaches beekeeping as a hobby, researcher Kit Prendergast focuses on the importance of native bees and advocating for their protection.

The number of backyard bees is growing but the native bee ecologist worries they are going in the wrong places. 

“So, we obviously need honeybees for pollination of crops, and I think we need to recognise that that’s where they belong. People don’t need them as much in urban areas because an issue with that as well is people who take up beekeeping as a hobby might not invest in taking the honeybee courses and beekeeping responsibly,” Prendergast says.

The science communicator and researcher believes more regulation is needed. “There are some limits with how many honeybee hives someone can have, but some people don’t register their hives, so there needs to be, I think, a lot more biosecurity and focus,” she says.

There can be a good balance between having honeybees and protecting native bees if there’s more education around the difference and how to take care of both in the environment.

“There should be more regulations but also public education, just letting people know you can have bees in your yard for free just by creating a well-designed bee hotel and planting the right flowers and then you’ve got bees and they’re pollinating your things,” she says.

Prendergast says a truly bee-friendly city or suburb can be done with the right kind of plants in specific areas and more of them.

“I think native flowering trees along the streets, especially eucalypts like marri and like jarrah. So native flowering trees along the streets, not jacarandas, not London plane trees. Every local park should have an area set aside for wildflowers, like a garden. Native verge gardening should be catered towards native bees and pollinators,” Prendergast says.

Prendergast would like to see certified bee-friendly sections in nurseries where the plants are grown from untreated seeds, ones that research has shown are really attractive to native bees. “These particular plants can be marketed as bee-friendly and maybe discounted compared to other plants to provide incentives for people to buy those,” she says.

Peter Compton began beekeeping around seven years ago and goes to a lot of the bee buddy meetings and groups.

“I just enjoy watching the bees; they’re such fascinating creatures. I’ve been at it six years, coming up to my seventh and I learn stuff all the time. I watch a couple of things on YouTube and go to the meetings; it’s great fun,” he says.

Compton is becoming aware of the conversations around honeybees and native bees and has a small area in his backyard native bees.

“I see them around when I’m putting the washing out because they’re individuals; they don’t do honey, so they go their own way,” he says.

“There’s a little bit of competition between the native bees and the European honeybees, but we are regulated. There’s no downside to having bees.