South America
The richest stingless-bee traditions on earth: dozens of named species per community, each with its own honey, its own use and its own harvesting rule.
4 practices · region
- MeliponicultureStingless-bee keeping · RevivedKeeping stingless bees for honey, wax-resin and pollination, in log sections, clay pots or purpose-built boxes. Practised independently across the Neotropics, Australia, Southeast Asia and parts of Africa, and constrained everywhere by the same biological limit.
- Brazilian meliponicultureStingless-bee keeping · Widespread living practiceThe largest organised stingless-beekeeping sector in the world: many species kept in rational box hives, a legal framework governing colony keeping and movement, and the biggest research community working on any of this.
- Amazonian stingless bee knowledgeStingless-bee keeping · Practised, decliningThe richest honey classifications on earth: indigenous communities across Amazonia distinguishing dozens of stingless bee species by name, each with its own honey, its own uses and its own harvesting rules. Almost none of it is in English.
- Fermented pot honeyCultural use · Local living practiceStingless bee honey ferments readily because it is wetter than Apis honey, and several traditions treat that as the point rather than as spoilage — deliberately aged, soured and drunk.