Stingless Black Bee of the Highlands of Guatemala

So my good friend Charlie, at La Cambalacha, came into a hive of Stingless Black Bees. A local man found the nest in the mountains and brought it down to Charlie. After sitting untouched for several years, a beekeeper from Canada came to our town and agreed to help us divide the hive into two and build some boxes that are fit for holding this type of bee.



The division process is very basic, basically involving a machete, which is used to slowly cut the hive in two. When there are two separate pieces, one should stay in the first area and the other piece needs to be moved at least 500 meters away. This is so the piece of the hive that does not have a queen will be encouraged to start making a new queen for their hive. If the two pieces remained close together, all of the bees would just go to the piece of hive that has the original queen, leaving the other piece to rot. Next week, we plan to do another hive division. My friend Terri, who is helping us start our MILPA, has agreed to make new boxes for the division process in exchange for one of the hives. Thus, I will put up another post with pictures and more detailed information regarding hive division and also bee box design.



As for precaution, because they are stingless, I did not use too many precautions in terms of netting or smoke. I basically put a hood on tightly tied and a t-shirt across my nose and mouth. The bees do not sting, but they pinch and they also tend to climb into your ears, nose and mouth.

The hive was divided about 2 months ago and since then, my piece has sat in a basic cardboard box under the shade of a few lime trees. I just built a simple roof for them to provide a bit more shade and protection from rain, as they cannot get wet. They actually seemed very happy in the cardboard box. Within two weeks of being there, they completely attached their mud hive to all sides of the box. They seem to be quite happy there and I have not bothered them really at all since then.