This research project was necessary to investigate the relationships between stingless bees, honey and Amazonian communities in Peru. Honey production is an important economic activity for many Peruvian communities, however, the use of stingless bees for this purpose is not widely known as with Apis mellifera. In the last years, entomological and traditional knowledge on stingless bees in Peru have been analyzed, nevertheless, information on botanical composition, through a scientific certification, of their honeys continues to be unknown. To fill this gap of knowledge, the purpose of this research project was to investigate the relationships between stingless bees, honeys and Amazonian people by identifying stingless bee species kept for honey production and analyzing the botanical contents of the honeys from a palynological perspective.
The study took place in two regions of the Peruvian Amazon: Loreto and Pasco. In Loreto, four different sites were visited and in Pasco, two different sites. The Loreto localities corresponds to the lowland Amazon and the Pasco localities to the highland Amazon. There are some botanical taxa found in both regions but, at the same time, there is a specific vegetation cover for each of the ecosystems found throughout their territories. These ecosystem conditions influence in the collection of botanical resources and diets of the studied bee species which were identified as Melipona illota, Melipona eburnia, Melipona grandis, Tetragonisca angustula and Trigona sp. From these stingless bee species, 10 grams of honey were sampled from each hive and analyzed in the Palynology and Paleobotany Laboratory at Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia under standardized palynological methodologies. Then, pollen identifications and counts were conducted per each honey sample.
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Figure 1. Extraction of honey samples from stingless bee hives in Amazonian locations
Pollen grains from the Melastomataceae, Euphorbiaceae, Myrtaceae, Elaeocarpaceae and Fabaceae botanical families were found within the honey samples. The identified taxa have been also reported in studies from countries that share Amazonian territories with Peru, such as Brazil and Colombia. A notable preference for Melastomataceae pollen grains has been observed which is supported by the foraging behavior of stingless bees related to the use of vibrations to remove and collect pollen grains from Melastomataceae flowers. Other taxa such as Fabaceae, Euphorbiaceae and Myrtaceae have flowers with botanical structures that facilitates the collection of pollen such as open corollas and longitudinally opened anthers. In addition, botanical resources that are not pollinated by insects, specifically bees, were found such us Zea mays, Trema and Poaceae. These wind-pollinated plants are important in melissopalynological studies because they indicate which plants are present in the habitat where bees live and their role to maintain the studied ecosystem.
Figure 2. Diverse pollen types found in the honey samples
When grouping bees per species, a particular preference for melliferous flora is observed, despite their locations. For example, Melipona eburnea bees from Pasco and Loreto share a similarity on pollen collection for species from the Melastomataceae family, which are abundant throughout the Amazon. At the same time, inside the same location, where different bee hives were studied, different botanical taxa were identified although the flora is equally available to all the nearby bees. This finding is very interesting because suggests a preference on diet per bee species and this is helpful for beekeepers to maintain and preserve the abundance of identified and preferred botanical resources in the area.
Differences in the interactions between people, stingless bees and honey were found in the two studied Amazonian regions. In Loreto, beekeepers produce stingless bee honey mainly for economic and medicinal purposes, they know more on the ecology of the bees, they know scientific and common names, they can distinguish stingless bees from other types of bees and they are more knowledgeable on the botanical resources bees collect by occasionally observations. Honey producers from Loreto have received a technical training on meliponiculture, stingless bees breeding, to keep the bees in a sustainable manner. They are very careful with the bees and no everyone can directly interact with them, only authorized people. On the other hand, in Pasco, honey is mainly produced for personal consumption. In this region, honey producers are starting to develop a close interaction with stingless bees. They know less on the ecology of stingless bees as compared to producers from Loreto because the principal bee species used for honey production in their location is Apis mellifera. Some honey produces have hives of stingless bees but just for curiosity and novelty because they produce less honey than Apis mellifera. Despite this, honey producers from Pasco were interested in the project as they are recognizing melissopalynology as a scientific tool to verify the composition of the honey they produced.
Figure 3. Beekeepers interacting with stingless bee hives
To conclude, diverse botanical taxa characteristic of humid and hot environments found in the Peruvian Amazon were identified with the melissopalynological analysis. They are now recognized as local melliferous flora preferred by stingless bees. A pollen atlas will be available to facilitate the identification of pollen grains from the Peruvian flora for future investigations. Pictures with scales and morphological characterizations will be found in the atlas to easily identify the taxa per family, genus and species. The different interactions between people and bees are important as they reflect how people use their traditional knowledge in the organization and conduction of a particular daily activity that produce income. These relationships imply also the diverse uses people give to honey, only as an edible product, or as a medicinal or spiritual product that benefits their health.
I am very grateful to the Eva Crane Trust funding because this research produced many benefits for myself and the community in general. First, I was able to conduct research again after the pandemic, this motivated me to continue to work on my professional goals. Second, melissopalynology is now known by more people, not just inside academia, also by traditional honey producers, their relatives and friends in Peru. They now recognize the importance of the study of pollen grains and how they can be extracted from bioproducts such as honey for identification. In Peruvian academia, this science is now more important and many students have learned from its application, from the field to the laboratory work, in the study of sustainable ecosystems. There are students interested in conducting melissopalynology and ethnobiology for their undergraduate thesis, emphasizing the importance of biological and anthropological methods in multidisciplinary studies. Finally, the ECT funding benefited me and everyone by supporting the dissemination of information, this by completing the edition of the first pollen atlas of Peru and publishing the results of this study in an international journal.
Thanks to the Eva Crane Trust, the palynology laboratory in Lima, Peru is ready to conduct more research!
Dr Rossana Paredes, Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, Peru.
Ref.: ECTA_20210904
Completed 2024.