Australia's most dangerous venomous creature is not a snake or a spider, nor even a jellyfish.

It's the bee and other stinging insects that pose the biggest public health threat, according to an analysis of more than a decade of Australian bites and stings.

The University of Melbourne study, published in the Internal Medicine Journal on Tuesday, found that it was bees and other insects such as wasps that often had the most dangerous effect on a person once bitten or stung.

The analysis of 13 years' data found that, including fatalities, venomous stings and bites resulted in almost 42,000 hospitalisations.