Importance of stingless bees in families in rural Guatemala

Abstract

The stingless bees are native to the tropical and subtropical areas of the planet. In the American continent they are distributed from Mexico to Argentina. In America, the Mayans produced technology for the management of these bees, and because of the abundance of vegetation, the real bee (Melipona beecheii), which produces white honey, worked on a large scale, each meliponary consisted of hundreds of bee colonies. . During the colony honey bees were exported to Spain. In Guatemala the bees of the meliponas and trigonas genera are worked in rustic form, there are very few technified meliponiculturists. The Guatemalans in the rural area, use the honeys of the different species of native bees, as a medicine, although the production of honey is low, the honey prices of these bees are higher than that of Apis mellifera. The honey produced by the Meliponiculturists of Guatemala does not satisfy the demand that exists, because there are few meliponarios and most are unaware of the modern techniques for raising these bees. These bees are worked in small areas and in the yard of the family home in the rural area, as they are harmless, the children and the mother, can produce honey and pollen. For the nutrition of the family and to sell surpluses, honey is rich in protein, due to the presence of pollen, vitamins, minerals, enzymes and energy. In Guatemala technified meliponiculturists use two types of beehives, the Noguera Neto and Portugal Araujo, the first is used for small bees, while Portugal Araujo is used for large bee both facilitate the management of the bee, during the present year will validate a beehive that I propose for bees of the genus Meliponas. The native bees pecorean small flowers where Apis mellifera bees can not extract nectar, they are selective and do not extract nectar in plantations where they have applied herbicides or insecticides, the honey is liquid. Stingless bees are resistant to diseases of Apis mellifera bees, the enemies of native bees are ants, lizards, toads and birds and a small black fly that is introduced to the colonies to oviposit, and larvae feed on pollen and honey, in Guatemala this fly is called Nemen.