The shapes of the nests of stingless bees are quite different from the nests of honeybees. Honeybees always build vertical hanging wax combs. The typical stingless bee nest is made with horizontal brood combs, often consisting of one type of cell with the openings upward, from which workers, queens and drones emerge. The queen cells being a little larger and situated on the end of the brood nest. Some few species build brood cells in piles in a special brood chamber, and one African stingless bee, Dactylurina staudingeri, builds vertical double-sided combs. The brood chamber is surrounded by a
protective wall made with wax and propolis - the involucrum. Outside the involucrum, the bees build soft wax pots for pollen and honey. These pots can be from five to 40 millimetres high. In some species the honey pots and pollen pots are segregated, in others they are intermixed. In a few species, the honey pots are oval and the pollen pots appear like stalactites hanging over the brood cells. The whole nest, or the ends (if placed in a hollow trunk) is enclosed in the batumen, a special material made by a
mixture of resin, wax and various amounts of other materials like mud, oil, paint, and sometimes, animal faeces. It is like dark, hard propolis. The batumen can be very strong and thick and protects the colony against water and enemies. Stingless bees are often seen visiting trees that are secreting resin from recent wounds, because they need a lot of resin for building. The bees transport it home in their pollen baskets for construction work in the nest. Some species keeps stores of wax and propolis, ready
for use