Meleo y meliponarios domésticos en Chaco

Abstract

Abstract

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 bee keeping. The most sought-out 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 bee keeping 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 bee keeping would promote the conservation of wild non-reared pollinators promoting pollination. In the Chaco forest, stingless bee keepers 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 bee keeping and forest-bee-plant conservation includes a holistic approach with ecological, economic and sociocultural components. Stingless bee keeping should be developed at 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 programs.

Key words carrying capacity • Chaco deforestation • floral resource depletion • medicinal cerumen market • medicinal honey market • medicinal propolis market • meliponiculture • overpopulation • sustainable development Extra key words Scaptotrigona jujuyensis • Tetragonisca angustula fiebrigi • “yateí”