Stingless Bee in Australia

Stingless Bee Rescue

Of the 1600 species of wild bees native to Australia, about 14 species are stingless. As stingless bees are harmless to humans, they have become an increasingly attractive addition to the suburban backyard or verandah.

Bee keeping

Most stingless bee keepers are not after honey. Rather, they enjoy the sense of conserving a native species whose original habitat is being increasingly cleared and developed. In return, the bees pollinate crops, garden flowers and bushland during their search for nectar and pollen.

Stingless bees usually nest in hollow trunks and branches of trees, or rock crevices, but they have been encountered in wall cavities, old garbage bins, water metres and 44-gallon drums! However, most bee keepers keep bees in their original log hive or transfer them to a wooden box.

Like the European Honey Bee (Apis mellifera), which provide most of Australia's commercially produced honey, stingless bees have enlarged areas on their back legs for carrying pollen back to the hive. After a foraging expedition, these pollen baskets or corbiculae, can be seen stuffed full of bright orange or yellow pollen. Stingless bees also collect nectar, which they store in an extension of their gut called a crop. Back at the hive, the bees ripen or dehydrate the nectar droplets by spinning them inside their mouthparts until honey is formed.

"Ripening concentrates the nectar and increases the sugar content from between 20 and 40 percent, to about 80 percent," Tim says.

Unlike a hive of honey bees, which can produce 75 kilograms of honey a year, a hive of stingless bees produces less than one kilogram. Stingless bee honey also has a distinctive bush taste - a mix of sweet and sour with a hint of lemon. The taste comes from plant resins - which the bees use to build their hives and honey pots - and varies depending on the flowers and trees visited.

While a number of bee keepers fill a small niche market for bush honey, the structure of stingless bee hives makes the honey difficult to extract. The bees store pollen and honey in large egg-shaped pots made of cerumen, which consists of beeswax mixed with a plant resin called propolis. These pots are irregularly arranged around a central brood comb, where the larval bees are housed.

"The natural living pattern of stingless bees is to centre their young in the middle of the hive, insulated from major temperature changes," Tim says.

Tim has recently designed a new hive, which retains the original brood comb space, but incorporates a second space above the chamber, where the bees can build their storage pots. This design allows bee keepers to access the honey pots, without damaging the brood comb.


Bee Rescue

As land clearing continues apace in Australia, little thought is given to tiny insects nesting in inconspicuous hollows high above ground. But six years ago, a stingless bee saviour arrived in the form of Rob Raabe and his friend Ces Heather. The pair established a "Bee Rescue Service", which today includes a core of about five men.

Each has an interest in stingless bees that stems from a desire to conserve them. Some of the members sell rescued hives to help cover rescue costs, while others keep the bees to enhance pollination of crops or bushland. But they all enjoy watching the bees buzz about their backyards.

Today, Rob, Ces and three other stingless bee enthusiasts, Alan Waters, Kevin White and Col Webb, are at a property near Ipswich, west of Brisbane, that's being cleared for a fence line. Piles of fallen timber litter the paddock in readiness for burning, but one dead tree remains standing. Inside are two stingless bee hives. As I look skywards, I can just make out a black speck hovering around the knot of a broken branch. Spotting such hives, I see, requires a degree of knowledge, a good pair of binoculars and in my case, imagination.

Rob's bee-spotting skills and the techniques he uses to rescue stricken bees, have been acquired over years of observing the insects, coupled with a liberal dash of trial and error.

"We made a lot of mistakes in the early years, but our knowledge and skills are improving all the time," he says.

The group has also benefited from workshops run by Tim Heard, and information provided by the Australian Native Bee Research Centre in New South Wales.

We stand back as Alan starts up the chainsaw and cuts the hives away from the main trunk. The entrance to each hive tells the men that two bee species are present. The first hive entrance is surrounded by the sticky red seeds of the Cadagi tree (Eucalyptus torelliana). These seeds usually litter the entrance of Trigona carbonaria hives, as the bees acquire the seeds while foraging for resin in the gumnuts.

The second hive entrance is much less obvious and consists of a long thin tube, which extends some distance outside the hollow log. This hive belongs to Austroplebeia australis, a smaller and less active bee than T. carbonaria.

As Rob and Alan open the T. carbonaria hive, expertly slicing the section of log in two, a puff of bees escapes what looks like a waxy, brown lump filling the hollow. The hive is loosened from the sides of the log and the most important part - the brood comb - is carefully extracted.

Inside the brood comb are the queen bee and thousands of larvae, which will ensure the continued survival of the hive. The T. carbonaria comb that Rob holds up for inspection is made up of thousands of cells arranged in a spiral pattern. Each cell is stocked with honey, pollen and a glandular secretion called "royal jelly", which feeds the developing larvae over about 50 days.


Working Bees
As Rob and Alan work, they tell me that the sex of the bees depends on the number of chromosomes they receive. Female bees have two sets of chromosomes (diploid) - one set from the queen and another from one of the male bees or drones. Drones have only one set of chromosomes (haploid) and are the result of unfertilised eggs.

Female bees may become workers or queens depending on the nutrition they receive as larvae. Queen bee cells can be distinguished from other cells by their larger size, as they are stocked with more food than the worker and drone cells. When the new queens emerge, they are killed or evicted. But if the ruling queen is weak or dying, the hive will select a virgin queen to replace her.

When the young worker bees emerge from their cells, they tend to remain inside the hive pursuing different jobs. Some will be involved in the on-going construction of the hive while others will remove rubbish or become nurse bees, producing royal jelly to feed the larvae. As they get older they become guards or foragers. Most die at this stage (around 80 days), although some may live to become scouts, responsible for finding food and alerting other bees in the hive to its source. At any one time, hives can contain about 10 000 workers, 10 000 larvae and several hundred drones.

When Rob and Alan finish transferring the brood comb and as many pollen and honey pots they can salvage, to a new box, they smear some of the cerumen around the entrance of the box. A pheromone released by the cerumen will enable bees to identify their hive. Importantly, the new hive will remain on site until night falls, ensuring that any workers out foraging for pollen and nectar have time to find their way home.

Rob and Alan now turn their attention to the A. australis hive. The section of log containing the hive is well preserved, so the men decide to leave the hive inside. The ends of the log are sealed with pieces of wood, to prevent predator access, and the log is transported back to Rob's place. Here the bees will happily visit the trees and flowers in his and surrounding gardens.

While two more hives have been saved, Rob says thousands more hives across the country are in danger or have already been destroyed. As more people become aware of the plight of stingless bees and learn the skills of bee rescue and bee keeping however, he hopes a network of rescue services will be able to cover a much wider area.


source: www.abc.net.au

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Honey from stingless bees

About 800 species of stingless bees are found throughout tropical regions of the World, ranging from such ecologically diverse habitats as humid rainforest to dry savanna or cerrado. Their greatest diversity and abundance, however, is in the Amazonian rain forest. While they range in size from only a few mm to larger than the honey bee (Apis mellifera), they all live in colonies where they care for the brood (the new bees) laid by the colony mother, or queen. Some colonies contains thousands of individuals. Working females are constantly flying in and out of the colony to gather what is needed for sustaining the large family. Most importantly the foraging workers gather honey and pollen used as provision for the young bees (larvae) being reared. The bees will usually store a large amount of both honey and pollen during favorable times which they can use later. If properly managed, the honey can be harvested from the stingless bees without damaging or weakening the colony.

The taste of stingless bee honey is experienced different by different people, but generally it is called very sweet and pleasant, almost acidic and with a boost of floral fragrances. The highly desired Tetragonisca honey is a little more acidic compared to honey from Melipona due to the plants visited by these bees.



Traditional use of honey from stingless bees

The use of stingless bee honey is known from all of the regions where these bees are found, with possibly most interest in the cultivation in Latin America and Australia (called sugar-bags there). The best documented use of honey from stingless bees comes from the Mayan civilization in the Yucatan peninsula where they use Melipona beechei. Here the bee is called "xunancab" and beekeeping of this species originated independent of hive beekeeping with honey bees in the Old World. "Xunancab" was in the Maya civilization only second in importance to corn (maize) in people's lives and rituals. The honey was used both as honey, but also fermented as "balche", their alcoholic drink. Today the tradition of keeping stingless bees has largely been abandoned in favor of imported honey bees (Apis mellifera) which yields more honey.

In Peru stingless bee honey has been used in traditional medicine for centuries or more, but the actual beekeeping has been limited and most honey for the local market is collected by cutting down trees with entire bee colonies, which are then left to die. Traditionally honey from stingless bees are harvested by squeezing the honey pots with the bare hands and collecting the honey as it pour out of the nest, often contaminated with pollen and brood (bee larvae). This makes the honey particular susceptible to fermentation. The honey is widely used and often sold at local markets. Here the honey may serve both as a sweetener, but more often as part of folk medicine. Stingless bee honey are an important part of different treatments against throat infections (common cold, cough), but are also used in the treatment of fertility problems.

While the honey possesses anti-bacterial properties dependent on the botanical origin of the honey, the combination of stingless bee honey with jungle herbs may alter or improve the properties of each remedy to be more specific in the treatment. A typical mixture to combat fever include stingless bee honey (1 part) mixed with sugar cane alcohol (5 parts) and left with the local plant "chuchu-huasi" (Maytenus krukovii) and pollen.


How can I tell the difference between honey bee honey and stingless bee honey?
Stingless bee honey is more liquid than the well known honey bee honey. Honey bee honey has a water content of about 20% while the stingless bees has a water content of between 20-42%, depending on the species and the area from where the honey is collected. The high water content in stingless bee honey makes it very prone to fermentation. The flavor is often described as a more flowery than honey bee honey, but it depends largely on the species. There has been relatively little scientific research into the medical properties attributed to honey from stingless bees, but due to the presumption that it is a remedy and the usually low amount of honey produced, the price is much higher than that of honey bee honey (Apis mellifera).

How to consume the honey you just purchased?

We recommend to use our stingless bee honey against the common cold in a mix of two tablespoons of honey (10 ml) and half a tablespoon of fresh lime (2.5 ml). It is also recommended to add a little garlic if you are coughing. Stingless bee honey is also great in fruit salads; adding it to a bowl full of e.g. banana, pineapple, apple, mangos, grapes, the juice of two oranges, and finally three-four tablespoons (15-20 ml) of stingless bee honey. Fruit flavored yogurt can be added. Of course, the honey can also be used in place of honey bee honey or sugar to add a more exotic flavor, but keep in mind, that honey from stingless bees is a little more runny than what you usually experience with honey bee honey.

Where did your honey come from?

Our colonies are kept in different parts around the city of Tarapoto, San Martin, Peru. Our bees will here visit tall trees in the secondary rainforest along the River Shilcayo or River Cumbaza. They will occasionally encounter a few monkeys or a lone toucan in the trees, while colorful poison-arrow frogs (Dendrobates) sing from the bank of the river. We are not certain how many different trees have been visited for your honey, but guarantee that the honey is completely authentic and not altered or modified by additives or artificial feeding during the honey production. This guarantees a rich and unique flavor to your honey. Supplemental sugar is provided to strengthen the colonies only when we are installing colonies into new hives following reproduction, and thus prevents us from loosing a very valuable genetic resource from our management program.

Rainforest conservation and stingless bees

The stingless bees depend on the rainforest to succeed. Unlike honey bees (Apis mellifera) they do not adapt to low diversity crop systems and will disappear if the rainforest disappear. Therefore the promotion of stingless bees is a very important tool to educate people living in the rainforests about the importance of their surrounding forest. Honey production by native stingless bees is also an ecologically very sound and cheap method to generate a sustainable livelihood in the Amazon rainforest. Production of stingless bee honey provides the farmer with an economic alternative to logging and encourage the conservation of trees as nectar and pollen sources. By developing stingless bee honey programs, we hope to raise the living standard for otherwise marginalized people and contribute to their awareness in conservation of the rain forest and all of its inhabitants.

About us

We are a legally registered Peruvian NGO ("Asociación Civil Melipona"). Since 2002 we have kept and studied stingless bees. Our mission is to promote the keeping of stingless bees throughout the Amazon region in an aim to teach people about conservation and the importance of eco-systems as an sustainable alternative, with the utilization of non-timber forest products like honey from stingless bees. We are still in a pilot-phase developing techniques for keeping stingless bees and pursuing other conservation goals. Our background range from professional entomologist with Ph.D., agronomists, and Peruvian farmers, all united by the curiosity and love for the nature and the native bees.

source: www.melipona.org

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