A Different Kind of Beekeeping Takes Flight

[Judi Lynn]

February 17, 2012, 1:43 pm
A Different Kind of Beekeeping Takes Flight
By DOUGLAS M. MAIN

Much of the honey eaten in the United States and Europe comes from the European honeybee. But Apis mellifera and the handful of other species in the honeybee family aren’t the only ones that make this sugary treat. A much larger and more diverse group called stingless bees also produce honey — and they’re creating a buzz among beekeepers and researchers worldwide as pollinators and as a newfound source of food and medicinal products.

Made up of more than 600 species, each of which makes its own version of honey, this tribe of bees lives throughout the world’s tropics. Like honeybees, they are social and form colonies with a queen and workers, many of which collect nectar from various flowers before bringing it back home to churn painstakingly into honey. Their foraging transfers pollen from one bloom to another, a service that many plants — and agriculture as we know it — could not survive without.

But stingless bees are pickier than their European counterparts about what flowers they visit, making them important for keeping certain tropical forests healthy.

Their honey, too, is different, containing more water — you would probably drink it as opposed to eating it with a spoon, said David Roubik, a bee expert with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama.

More:
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/17/a-different-kind-of-beekeeping-takes-flight/?partner=rss&emc=rss

[txlibdem]

1. Bees are vital to our survival, vital to agriculture

I'm surprised there are no comments on this important OP. Bees in America are still suffering from colony collapse and it may not be a bad idea to introduce a few stingless varieties of bees to North America. Call it a plan B (hehe).

Love this:

In Japan, stingless bees are being cultivated to pollinate greenhouses, a feat at which they excel. Since they can't survive in temperate areas, they cannot escape and interfere with local insect populations...

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/17/a-different-kind-of-beekeeping-takes-flight/?partner=rss&emc=rss

Greenhouse growing and Vertical Farms are going to become more important to our food security as Global Climate Change increasingly causes havoc with our field crops through droughts, floods, and insect infestations brought about by warmer temperatures.

[dana_b]

2. bring them here!!

We need more bees and anything that won't sting is alright in my book.

[Ethnobeeology]

3. Stingless Bee Photos and Reality

Visit my FB Ethnobeeology page to learn more https://www.facebook.com/pages/Ethnobeeology/318530098181576 There are a lot of photos, information, and links about stingless bees. But also read below - Native North American Bee Diversity should not be ignored!

A brief description of the situation here in the Americas. Beekeepers and agriculturalists in countries here have regularly chosen to import queen honeybees (Apis mellifera) and bumblebee colonies (Bombus spp.) for pollination services or in the case of honeybees additionally for honey production. What we are seeing is the spread of pathogen species and pathogen strains that are not native to our regions. Bombus impatiens (E. USA) and Bombus occidentalis (W. USA), native north American bee species were sent to Europe and raised there by experts, then sent back here for greenhouse tomato pollination. They brought with them pathogens (the Commercial Bumbleebee and Honeybee Raising Industry is prone to high pathogen infestation rates). Most pathogens/mites/etc. I can think of are Genus specific (i.e. Bumblebee pathogens stick with Bumblebees and likewise for honeybees that is why at times they are named things like Crithidia bombii, Nosema bombi or Crithidia mellificae or Leptontonas apis - can you guess what bee hosts these creatures live on?). I can imagine a real danger of moving solitary bees to places where they are not native is the spread of non-native pathogens. In the case of (see here for poorly written article -> http://www.wvec.com/news/Pest-that-could-devestate-honey-bees-intercepted-in-Norfolk-139407223.html ) Eastern USA species of Osmia could be exposed to European strains or species of pathogens.... best to support local native pollinators and sustainable apiculture rather than import or rely on Corporate Industrial Apiculture. I believe people should take this very seriously - Bombus occidentalis (the western bumblebee) was once the most commonly encountered bumble on the West Coast of North America - now (post export/import/commercial rearing) it is rarely seen - computer model estimates for the rate of spread from an infested colony at a tomato greenhouse is at a rate of 2 km/wk. Often pathogens (intestinal ones, etc.) are not able to be detected with current protocols, and i can think of one example in SW Oregon where they illegally imported the non-native Eastern Bumblebee, Bombus impatiens, and did not get in real trouble as far as I know (it is legal in California unfortunately) - now other Bombus species (Bombus vosnesenskii and Bombus mixtus), are being found (in 2011) with these new pathogens. Trying to stay on topic here.... key word if you are researching is "Pathogen Spillover". Of course North America does not have stingless bees for a few possible reasons (a)Stingless bees are subtropical to tropical and (b) European destruction of cultures in sub-tropical North America (de Soto and his men killed natives in what is now southern Georgia (USA) and took their honey, there are other cases) and (c) the introduction of the European honeybee Apis mellifera helped cause the extinction of stingless bees in the southern USA. Commericial rearing of stingless bees for industrial greenhouse agriculture or for temporary use in the agricultural fields (during warm summer) is not a good idea as they will likely be TORCHED (incinerated) at the end of the summer (as commercial hives of bumblebees used in greenhouse pollination are at the end of the season), or they will have to be transported back to another country or distant location - allowing for more fossil fuel, disease spreading, etc.

Native bees in North America provide all the pollination needed for our farms, if they are present - And to be present they need nesting habitat and good foraging habitat - A 500 acre almond orchard is BAD habitat for native bees, because MOST of the year nothing is blooming there. If farmers incorporate hedgerows, untilled ground, native plants, and/or a diversity of crops Native Bees will bee around. Plenty of research PROVING this has been done. Native bees are unlikely to sting (most are solitary bees - single working mom bees with no inclination to sting , and their stings are very low on the pain index (Schmidt Sting Index).

I hope this is informative and will lead to work for native pollinators (including bees) wherever you live.