Scaptotrigona bees

How to recognise it

Small to medium, typically 5 to 7 mm, dark brown to black and rather shiny, with a conspicuous flared resin entrance tube at the nest.

• A large projecting entrance tube of dark resin, frequently with many workers clustered at the mouth.
• Colonies noticeably larger and busier than a Melipona nest in the same area.
• Defensive: disturbing a nest brings out a cloud of biting workers that tangle in hair.

Body length 4–8 mm (typically 6 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

5,000–60,000 individuals

Colony lifespan

Perennial, and colonies can occupy a cavity for many years.

Winter

No winter. Stores are held against the dry season and against the heaviest rains.

Castes

Queen, Worker, Male

Nesting

Existing cavities and tubes; Resin-lined cavities

Nests in tree hollows and wall cavities behind a long resin entrance tube. Colony sizes an order of magnitude above Melipona are what allow a genuinely commercial harvest.

Carries pollen

Corbicula (pollen basket) on the hind leg

On the wing

January to December

Year-round, with the harvest taken before the heaviest rains.

Lifecycle

1. 1Mass provisioningStandard meliponine provisioning — cell filled, egg laid, cell sealed — but at a rate that supports colonies of tens of thousands.

Where it lives and what it does

Habitat

Tropical and cloud forest, shade coffee plantation and village agroforestry.

Distribution

Mexico — particularly the Sierra Norte de Puebla, Veracruz, Oaxaca and Chiapas — south through Central America into tropical South America.

Behaviour

Forages further than Melipona and recruits strongly, which is why colonies grow so large. Aggressive competitors at rich flower patches, sometimes excluding other bees entirely.

Pollination role

Effective generalist pollinators of coffee and of a range of tropical crops, though their competitive foraging can displace other species at concentrated resources.

Honey

Stores a harvestable surplus

Yields several litres a year — high for a stingless bee — which is why the Sierra Norte de Puebla supports one of the largest concentrations of managed meliponine colonies anywhere.

Relationship with people

How people interact with it

Kept by Nahua and Totonac beekeepers in the Sierra Norte de Puebla in a tradition that predates the arrival of Apis mellifera in the Americas, and the subject of a denomination-of-origin effort for the honey.

Management

Kept in log and box hives. Their defensiveness means handling requires more care than Melipona, and colonies are usually sited away from paths and doorways.

Conservation

Less threatened than Melipona because colonies are large and adaptable, but still dependent on cavity availability and on the shade-coffee agroforestry that is being replaced by sun coffee.