"Correct" spelling of honey bee (honeybee)

[WLC]

Tropical rainforest contain the greatest biodiversity of any environment around. They aren't 'blueberries'.

Also, hpm counted 46 different Melipona and Trigona species. Honeybees aren't from tropical rainforests. Melipona and Trigona are. Of course they are exquisitely adapted to the rainforest.

[Ted Kretschmann]

Melapona and Trigona are being out competed by AHBs for food resources. Thus the stingless bee numbers are decreasing within their habitats. WLC kind of hit on the question I was going to ask He and Byron...What do you consider Bumble bees??? They produce honey and wax. I have even tasted Bumble honey- a bit strong but still was honey. TED

[byron]

Melapona and Trigona are being out competed by AHBs for food resources. Thus the stingless bee numbers are decreasing within their habitats. What do you consider Bumble bees???

WLC doesn't consider them honey bees because humans don't harvest their honey. I don't consider them honey bees because they are not in the genus Apis, which is the scientific definition of a honey bee. (family Apidae makes them bees, but genus Bombus makes them not honey bees.)

I posted on this a few pages ago, but apparently stingless bees do pollinate things AHB don't care for much, like vanilla beans. There are plants they compete for, but AHB will also physically attack stingless bees. It's really the combination of AHB and logging that is teaming up on the stingless. They need big hollow branches to nest in, and big trees get logged.

Plus, stingless queens can't fly, so the slash and burn practices down there means death for lots of colonies, whereas AHB can and will abandon their brood, so they make bad parents but can escape forest fires to establish new colonies.

[WLC]

Ted:

They're Apidae, or true bees. If some group of people has been harvesting honey from bumble bees for millenia, as is the case for Mellipona and Trigona, then I'd say yes, they're honey bees.

[mellivore]

If some group of people has been harvesting honey from bumble bees for millenia, as is the case for Mellipona and Trigona, then I'd say yes, they're honey bees.

Is the substance produced by bumblebees able to be sold on store shelves as honey? What does it read on a refractometer?
I am not aware if "length of time in use by humans" determines what something actually is.

Native Americans have been making honey from saw palmetto plants for a long time.
http://www.eustisflorida.com/saw1.htm

Does that make a palm tree a honey bee?

[WLC]

byron? Is that you? Nya'Ha.

It has to come from Apidae, or true bees. We know that miel de cana and miel de maguey come from plants also.

[hpm08161947]

To the best of my knowledge, the honey from the stingless bee is different from typical Apis honey. For one, it's water content is higher... it ferments easily, two, it's pH is different - it is higher. I also believe it's primary use is medicinal and secondary use is "booze". Sounds like sweetening is a minor use.

ps... you think that is Byron? yea me too.

[WLC]

Well, that certainly makes sense. The quality of the honey I mean. It's of tropical origin. I've tested some other tropical honeys (for virus), and they are 'runny' as well.

They might also use it for rituals. But, if it comes from a bee, it's still honey. However, I wouldn't necessarily put some on my baklava.

[hpm08161947]

I suppose we could just put an adjective in front of honey. Maybe just Tropical Honey, I mean, we say Sourwood Honey, Tupelo Honey, Wild Flower Honey. But whatever the adjective maybe, it does appear to have a limited commercial appeal. And this compounded with other social factors seems to be leading to it's ultimate demise.

[WLC]

Personally,

I would love for the Melipona and Trigona beekeepers to be able to sell their honey locally. It would provide an incentive for others to take up Melipona and Trigona beekeeping. It would also help to conserve a number of native bee species and even tropical plants as well.

I agree, that Melipona/Trigona honey would have a limited market, but I would also like to see indigenous beekeepers, who live way off of the beaten track, have an incentive for keeping them as well.

[mellivore]

But I think the African honeybee working tropical plants still produces a different substance than those Mayan bees, right?

What do the natives down there call the honey from AHB? I'm sure it's not the same word that they use for stingless honey (cab) right? Didn't a poster here say he raised Mayan bees in Panama? And you can get three times the price for their honey? So the natives down there obviously realize that it's different substances, and must call it different names than apis honey, right?

[dehavik]

Has anyone on this forum tried the stingless/melipona/trigona honey/elixir/medicinal sweet stuff? I've been fascinated (if exhausted) by these long threads and would love to try some of these other bees' products. I doubt there's a stateside marketer of these foodstuffs, but has anyone purchased it from abroad?

[hpm08161947]

Has anyone on this forum tried the stingless/melipona/trigona honey/elixir/medicinal sweet stuff? I've been fascinated (if exhausted) by these long threads

The only one on here that I am aware of that has actually laid eyes on these colonies is Ted Kretchman. I should not be too hard to go ask him, or maybe he is still reading this thread, but I doubt it.

[mellivore]

I guess some of you won't like this, but Byron had encouraged a few of us in his group to research this a few days ago, for mine, I e-mailed this expert about why stingless bees aren't considered honey bees and why they are not in the Apis genus:


Denis Brothers is Professor of Entomology at the University of KwaZulu-Natal [link to http://www.ukzn.ac.za], South Africa. He has served as Head of School and Deputy Dean at UKZN, as well as in other administrative and advisory capacities. His interests involve the systematics of various groups of aculeate Hymenoptera, specially the families Mutillidae, Bradynobaenidae, Plumariidae and Scolebythidae, both modern and fossil. He has been the President of the International Society of Hymenopterists and of the International Palaeoentomological Society, and a Commissioner since 1996. He is also a member of the Council of the Natal Museum and on the editorial boards of African Invertebrates and Durban Museum Novitates.

Here is his response to me: (If you want to verify that he sent this to me, his e-mail address is: Brothers@ukzn.ac.za)

Dear Emily,

Apis is a genus (not a family), which means it comprises a group of bees with particular characteristics, both morphological and biological/behavioural. One of those relates to the sort of comb used for storing honey and rearing larvae - sheets of hexagonal cells. There are relatively few species in the genus Apis, mostly Asian.

Melipona, as you obviously know, also produce honey, but their colonies are much smaller than those of Apis species and the honey is stored in separate pots or less-organised combs, and there are various morphological differences, so that the various species of Melipona form a group distinct from the species of Apis. Nevertheless, both genera are quite closely related and are placed in the subfamily Apinae within the very large family Apidae, which includes many non-social bees too.

The term "true honey bees" is just a common name for the bees in the genus Apis, as opposed to other honey bees like bumble bees (genus Bombus) and Melipona and its close relatives such as Trigona.

As far as differentiating Melipona from other bees goes, that is a bit more tricky. There is a recent book which provides keys and illustrations to the genera. It is Volume 7 of Abc Taxa, by Eardley, Kuhlmann and Pauly, 2010, and is available free on request from Dr Yves Samyn (yves.samyn@naturalsciences.be). You can find more information about it at www.biodiv.be.

I hope that has been useful.
All the best.
Denis Brothers

------------------------------

[mellivore]

....but has anyone purchased it from abroad?

You can learn more about stingless bee honey and buy it at:
http://www.melipona.org/

It's interesting, even these folks differentiate between honey bees and stingless bees. Another difference between cab and honey is that the cab is pasteurized to prevent fermentation due to the chemical difference between cab and honey. So if you like the benefits of raw, unpasteurized honey, stingless bee honey (cab) may not be your thing.

It's also not extracted like true honey, but has to be sucked out with a medical aspirator (AspiraMax MA-520).

[WLC]

'The term "true honey bees" is just a common name for the bees in the genus Apis, as opposed to other honey bees like bumble bees (genus Bombus) and Melipona and its close relatives such as Trigona.'

So, I didn't go far afield when insisting that 'Honeybees' are apis species from which honey is gathered, and 'honey bees' are Apidae (he brings it down to Apinae) that are used to gather honey.

Let me post this link so that you can take a phylogenetic view of how these honey bees are related:

http://nature.berkeley.edu/~sramirez...pona%20DOI.pdf

It's interesting to note that many Melipona bees are more recently evolved species of honey bees.

I'm still stewed that the ESA's definition of 'honey bee' is arbitrary and harmful to indigenous Melipona/Trigona beekeepers. It's the 'ivory tower' syndrome.

[sqkcrk]

It's the 'ivory tower' syndrome.

Sorry. Couldn't resist. You left yourself wide open.

Yours or theirs? pa, dump, dump.

[WLC]

sqkcrk:

'WLC' stands for wildlife conservation.
I've paid my 'dues' in the field.

This thread came about because indigenous beekeepers are very important to the conservation of native pollinators. Despite the fact that they've kept 'honey bees', and gathered their 'honey' for thousands of years, 'definitions' created by various organizations have found a way to say that their bees aren't 'honey bees' and their honey isn't 'honey'.

It's no surprise that major honey producing contries like Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina have closed honey markets to indigenous Melipona and Trigona beekeepers. But, what's also surprising is that an organization with a stated mission of the conservation of native insects, like the ESA, would contribute to the closing of those markets via an arbitrary definition and remove major incentives for indigenous beekeepers to conserve Melipona and Trigona honey bee species.

Of course, there's the usual 'equality' message on the bottom of your posts. But, this 'definition' topic goes beyond equality. It's also a conservation of native pollinators issue.

[mellivore]

WLC:
No, you weren't far afield at all with your definition of honey and honeybee. What you boys have been butting heads on a message board about is the fact that it's not far afield to disagree with your definitions.

According to that Melipona site I provided, the rainforests do not depend on stingless bees as you suggested, but rather the bees depend on the rain forest for survival. Hopefully we can preserve both, as both are important.

There isn't much of a market for cab in the very countries where it is produced. Whose fault is that? What observations have you made that lead you to believe that the indigenous people have the ability to supply a global market for cab, and that they are not being allowed to?

If I was marketing their cab, I would design my whole campaign to stress that cab is not honey, it's completely different, and I'd charge triple the price of regular honey, like Ted said it fetches.

Also, By---er, I mean the man whose name we shall not say, posted earlier (it's gone now, sadly) that stingless bee propolis is very big on the world market. If anyone was shutting them out of something unfairly, why do we let them export propolis?

WLC, please let us know a few quick thoughts on each question?

[WLC]

Those bees are exquisitely adapted to their native tropical rain forests. If you want to preserve many of the species of plants in the remaining rainforest fragments, you'll need indigenous beekeepers to help get the job done. Did you think that Melipona/Trigona was only good for pollinating coffee beans?

There isn't much of a market for cab in the very countries where it is produced. Whose fault is that?

Why are we going with one organization's definition for Melipona/Trigona honey? Aren't they in Peru? By the way, I wouldn't expect that many indigenous beekeepers would have an internet site (with Paypal) or use an aspirator machine to gather honey.

Melipona/Trigona beekeepers measure their harvest in units much less than tons as commercial beekeepers are used to. It's the local markets that they're being excluded from that are a cause for concern.

What observations have you made that lead you to believe that the indigenous people have the ability to supply a global market for cab, and that they are not being allowed to?

The evidence was provided in links earlier on in the thread. I've said that they are being excluded from local honey markets. Also, you may have missed the ridiculous situation (in Mexico) whereby they had to call their honey 'divine elixir' because their bees aren't considered honey bees and therefore they aren't producing honey. Furthermore, moisture content standards, which are market barriers to Melipona/Trigona honey produced in the tropics, are being applied.

If anyone was shutting them out of something unfairly, why do we let them export propolis?

Because they're being shut out of the honey markets of Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina. I doubt that the propolis market is a threat to any of the major honey producers.