# New entusiast from Brazil



## Leandrogcard (Jan 29, 2013)

Hello All,

In the next days I am moving to a new apartment with a very nice balcony facing the woods, and I decided to install a few swarms of stingless bees in there, just as a hobby. This is becoming rather common here down. 

We do have a lot of different species of stingless bees in Brazil. There are about 300 species already identified and more yet to be discovered. They are quite diverse, with different sizes, shapes, colors, behavior and honey productivity. Some of them can even produce more honey per bee than the Apis Melifera, and their honey is also more valued in the market. Researching to decide which species to purchase I found there’s a lot of information available about these Brazilian bees in the WWW, but mostly in Portuguese. I found almost nothing in English about them. 

I also found some chats about these bees in foreign forums like this, but most comments showed a very low level of knowledge about such bees. Maybe I can help filling this void, so if anyone is curious, I can bring some info here thus you can learn about them. Just to tease, I would like to post an image of a few of these species below. I’ll be glad to answer any question about these amazing bees, if anyone is interested.

View attachment 4180


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## Lazer128 (Dec 15, 2012)

Welcome to the site.


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## AmericasBeekeeper (Jan 24, 2010)

Welcome Leandro!


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## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

Welcome.


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## SippyBees (Feb 17, 2004)

Eu amo Brasil!!!! Campo Grande/Belo Horizonte/Isle Grande/Paraty/Angra dos Reis/Rio de Janeiro(yacht club)/Palmas.... One of my favorite places I have seen in the world... and will be back again some day.... 
CHEERS Leandrogcard !!


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## Leandrogcard (Jan 29, 2013)

SippyBees said:


> Eu amo Brasil!!!! Campo Grande/Belo Horizonte/Isle Grande/Paraty/Angra dos Reis/Rio de Janeiro(yacht club)/Palmas.... One of my favorite places I have seen in the world... and will be back again some day....
> CHEERS Leandrogcard !!


Thank you for your warm welcome. Rio de Janeiro is my city, my whole family still lives in there. I go there all my vacations. 


Best regards.


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## samoadc (Dec 15, 2012)

Thanks for posting. When time would you please show some web sites where I could learn more, show us some photos, comment about how much honey the may produce, physical size of bees, photos and descriptions of equipment used to keep them, Maybe something about temperature tolerances, diseases, legality and danger of importing them to other countries as the killer bee fiasco scares the hell out of many of us in the U.S. Realize you could spread this information over many months and I would be pleased and maybe many others would too. Maybe schools coulkd have a hive in the classroom to teach about them in a science class or:


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## Leandrogcard (Jan 29, 2013)

Hi Samoadc;

My idea is exactly to share the information I gathered when researching to choose my own stingless bees, as well as to tell about my experiences with them after I get my colonies (which will happen in one or two months). There's plenty of blogs, university sites, technical papers and other stuff like that about Brazilian stingless bees in the internet, but almost all them are in Portuguese, so cannot be of much use for non native speakers. I can help translating the information I believe is more important and answering all questions I can.

Our stingless bees are really very diverse, belonging to different tribes, genus and species, and if you know a little about them it is not hard to find the best ones suited for the purpose in mind, from honey and pollen production to scientific research, teaching or just for fun. Most species cannot survive in non tropical regions, but there are a few ones that can be kept in areas where temperature goes as low as 0 Celsius (32 Fahrenheit) for a while. And also many can be kept with no problems inside the buildings , thus avoiding the extreme low temperatures during winter. 

As soon as I have time I’ll open a new topic and post all relevant information I have about these bees. And will also post something about the killer bees, first seem as a curse but now a truly blessing for Brazilian honey producers. 


BR.


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## ThaiRockShop (Mar 30, 2013)

I would love to find some of these in Stingless bees that can tolerate zero in the USA, I want to use them in a greenhouse as pollinators for strawberries, I know the Japanese are allowed to import them for use as pollinators, and since they are inside Greenhouse and will not survive outside, they have no problem or concerns with disease etc. They tend to be much easier and healthy then the European bee as well, but i am planning on getting 2 hives of them after may the big honey collecting time in Thailand. That said i bet the USA had some of these types of bees back in history before DDT and all the other chemicals used to kill every insects where spayed all over the USA and then all the logging and the competition with European bees came to USA, Any one have any knowledge. I called the State apiarist in Virginia asking about Stingless bees and he had never heard of them only said i must mean solitary bees, So i hope to educate more people on these, In Thailand we have 30 species of Stingless and in my town i know of about 4 varieties, I have 5 hives in boxes and hope to get the another variety in the logs.


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## Leandrogcard (Jan 29, 2013)

It´s nice to hear about your interest, ThaiRockshop.

I´ve been very busy organizing my new apartment and preparing the former one for renting, that´s why I still did not open the new topic. But I hope in a few more days I´ll finish all that and will start to post some info about the brazilian stingless bees.

We have over 300 species of them here down, and probably more still to be discovered. Not all are suitable for keepers, but at least 25 to 30 species are of interest, and among these some are really good as pollinators and honey producers. I know that at least one species, the manduri, have been used in greenhouses as pollinator in Germany. This species is particularly suitable for this purpose because their swarm is quite small, with about only 300 bees. And even been so small a single swarm can produce up to three liters of honey a year. 

I have already observed three different species of stingless bees in the gardens of the new appartment, thus I believe the ones I´ll keep will adapt quite well.


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