A sustainable technique for colony multiplication by eduction of wild nests of the stingless bee Tetragonula iridipennis Smith

Abstract

Colony multiplication of stingless bees, Tetragonula iridipennis, largely relies on the eduction of wild colonies from their natural nesting sites in India. During the hiving of wild colonies, colonies were destroyed with the loss of robust wild foragers and built-in storage reserves over the years. The present study was conducted to devise a technique to sustainably multiply the colonies of stingless bees from the wild colony and the colony establishment and development during the eduction process. The annexure hives provided for eduction were accepted in a shorter time (3.25 ± 1.18 days), with the construction of storage pots observed at 7.75 ± 1.59 days after hive acceptance by the bees. The movement of foragers between the wild colony and the annexure hives was noticed for 13.80 ± 4.20 days. The foragers settled in the annexure hives and started foraging after 18.20 ± 2.49 days. The advancing fronts were observed at 26.67 ± 2.58 days after the addition of the laying queen in the established annexure hives. There was a significant increase in the number of inhive workers after the queen seeding in the annexure hives. This technique is the easiest and most sustainable nondestructive way of multiplication of stingless bee colonies without loss in viability of the perennial wild colony.