Uruçu

How to recognise it

Large for a stingless bee at 10 to 12 mm, dark brown with pale bands and dense pale hair on the thorax. Comparable in size to a honey bee and noticeably heavier in flight.

• Large, hairy and dark with pale abdominal banding.
• A modest mud-and-resin entrance rather than a projecting tube.

Body length 9–13 mm (typically 11 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

800–4,000 individuals

Colony lifespan

Perennial and long-lived, with managed colonies divided rather than replaced.

Winter

No winter; stores held against the dry season.

Castes

Queen, Worker, Male

Nesting

Existing cavities and tubes; Resin-lined cavities

Requires a large hollow tree in the wild, which is the binding constraint on wild populations as Atlantic forest has been cleared.

Carries pollen

Corbicula (pollen basket) on the hind leg

On the wing

January to December

Year-round, with the harvest taken after the rains.

Lifecycle

1. 1Mass provisioningCells are provisioned and sealed, and caste is partly genetically determined — so colonies produce surplus queens that are then eliminated.

Where it lives and what it does

Habitat

Atlantic forest remnants, agroforestry and caatinga margins in northeastern Brazil.

Distribution

Bahia, Pernambuco, Alagoas, Sergipe and Paraíba.

Behaviour

Short foraging radius and generalist habits, so the honey reflects a genuinely local flora.

Pollination role

A buzz-pollinator, effective on Solanaceae and Myrtaceae crops that honey bees cannot service.

Honey

Stores a harvestable surplus

Three to six litres a year from a strong colony — high for a stingless bee.

Relationship with people

How people interact with it

The centre of northeastern Brazilian meliponiculture, an indigenous practice that predates European contact and continues as a smallholder tradition.

Management

Kept in modular boxes with separate brood and honey compartments, propagated by division.

Conservation

Wild populations are limited by the loss of large hollow trees with Atlantic forest clearance. Managed colonies now substantially outnumber wild ones.