Jataí

How to recognise it

Small and slender, about 4 to 5 mm, pale yellow to golden brown with a distinctly striped abdomen. Considerably paler than most stingless bees.

• A pale wax entrance tube projecting from a wall crack or tree hollow.
• Guard bees hovering motionless in the air just outside the entrance — a behaviour that is close to diagnostic.
• Small, golden and slow-flying, frequently in gardens and city walls.

Body length 4–5 mm (typically 4.5 mm).

Biology

Social organisation

Eusocial, colony survives the winter

Overlapping generations, division of labour, and a colony that persists through winter as a cluster. Honey bees, and the reason they store honey at all.

Colony size at peak

2,000–10,000 individuals

Colony lifespan

Perennial and long-lived.

Winter

No winter; year-round activity with dry-season stores.

Castes

Queen, Worker, Male, Soldier

Nesting

Existing cavities and tubes; Resin-lined cavities

Nests readily in wall cavities, hollow posts and purpose-built boxes, which is why it is so common in towns. The pale wax entrance tube is built fresh each day and closed at night.

Carries pollen

Corbicula (pollen basket) on the hind leg

On the wing

January to December

Year-round throughout its tropical range.

Lifecycle

1. 1Soldier casteTetragonisca angustula produces a physically distinct soldier caste — larger workers that guard the entrance and hover outside it. A morphologically separate soldier caste is genuinely rare among bees and was only described in this species in 2012.

Where it lives and what it does

Habitat

Forest, plantation, farmland and — very commonly — towns and cities.

Distribution

Mexico south through Central America to Argentina, across an enormous range.

Behaviour

Forages close to the nest and works small flowers most bees ignore. The hovering guards defend specifically against Lestrimelitta robber bees, which raid jataí nests.

Pollination role

A broad generalist pollinator of small-flowered plants, and increasingly used in protected-cropping systems where its docility and small size are advantages.

Honey

Stores small quantities, occasionally harvested

Perhaps half a litre to a litre a year. The honey is highly valued medicinally across Latin America and the quantities are small enough that it is rarely a commercial product in any real sense.

Relationship with people

How people interact with it

The gateway species for Brazilian meliponiculture and the most commonly kept stingless bee in the Americas, largely because it is docile, adaptable and happy in a box on a balcony.

Management

Kept in small boxes and divided readily. Its willingness to nest in urban cavities means colonies are frequently rescued from walls and rehoused rather than bought.

Conservation

Not currently of conservation concern — its adaptability to urban nest sites has made it one of the few meliponines that is doing well.