Large-Scale Breeding of Stingless Bees: A Plea for Sustainable Stingless Bee Keeping and Native Bee-Plant-Forest Conservation in the Chaco Region of Argentina

This contribution provides a brief description of the harvest of stingless bee honey by Creole people in the Chaco forest from the informal “meleo,” which is the collection of bee colony products, mostly honey, to the current large-scale stingless beekeeping. The most sought after stingless bees for this (due to the allegedly medicinal properties of their honey) are Tetragonisca angustula fiebrigi Schwarz and Scaptotrigona jujuyensis (Schrottky), and many beekeepers in the region aim for large-scale breeding similar to that of Apis mellifera Linnaeus. It is widely assumed that stingless beekeeping is a forest conservation activity. However, an overpopulation of stingless bees may have a negative impact on wild populations of other bees and other flower-feeding animals by depleting floral resources and, consequently, on forest plant reproduction and conservation of the entire biota. If developed correctly, stingless beekeeping would promote the conservation of wild non-reared pollinators promoting pollination. In the Chaco forest, stingless beekeepers encounter certain problems, such as overpopulation of reared and naturalized Apis colonies, high rates of deforestation and extensive monocultures with agrochemical applications. My proposal for sustainable stingless beekeeping and forest-bee-plant conservation includes a holistic approach with ecological, economic and sociocultural components. Stingless beekeeping should be developed on a moderate scale and should aim at the marketing of all colony products (not only honey), including unfermented pollen, cerumen and propolis. Besides, forest management should include the marketing of different non-timber forest products and the establishment of environmental educational programmes.