The Sour and the Sticky Products and Keeping and Breeding Bees Everywhere!

Abstract

Bee World • VOL 99 • September 2022 • Page 73 © 2022 International Bee Research Association The Sour and the Sticky Products and Keeping and Breeding Bees Everywhere! Bee World is proud to be the venue for a long read by Patricia Vit from Universidad de Los Andes, Venezuela, on not-sooften-discussed honeys ... the underground honeys of stingless bees. Patricia is (co-)editor of two textbooks on the products of stingless bees, called pot-honey and pot-pollen. In her article, she reviews the honey of meliponini that nest in the ground and store nectar in pots made of cerumen, a mixture of wax and propolis. This method of storing honey is evolutionarily probably older than the method of storing it in honey combs, as we know it from honey bees. Bacterial processes lead to acidity, and Patricia summarizes the activities of 57 bee species from 18 countries on 4 continents (!) studied in recent years that produce such sour honeys. The detailed processes involved in the making of such honey often remain unclear. More research is important to understand the how and why, as well as the properties of such honey for stingless bee health and survival, but also for product standardization.