KNOWLEDGE
B E
Tuerce pelo amarillo, (meaning yellow hair twisters)
this little golden brown colored bee, lives in the hollows of trees. While it is stingless, this species is an excellent biter, and loves to go for the head and hair, biting on ones scalp with a furry, for which the use of a veil is also necessary in their keeping.
The entrance to their hive is a long elongated tube sometimes protruding out over 50 cm long. They will stay in the same location for many years if not disturbed and this tube can become large and thick in size.
Visit our meliponario, at Guaria de Osa Ecolodge and ethnobotanical gardens. Located on the Costa Rica’s Osa Peninsula - the ‘Little Amazon’ by the Ocean, just south of Drake Bay, bordering Corovado National Park.
National Geographic describes the region as, “The Most Biologically Intense place on Earth!”
Check out our web site for promotional group rates, family vacation packages and volunteering.
www.guariadeosa.com
US Phone: # 510-235-4313 Skype: guariadeosa or # 1 908 998 1020
Percentage of all tuition proceeds to Guaria de Osa Ecolodge benefit rainforest conservation efforts both in Costa Rica and Ecuador. “Saving the Rainforest One Vacation at a time.”
For more info on these efforts visit:
www.4biodiversity.org
Photo by Author of Tuerce-pelo-amarillo in our meliponario.
Jonathon beckons you to Guaria de Osa!
In this photo of the hive in our meliponario, the tube has reached a length of over 35 cm, this is after a period of 7 years!
They adore the flower of the coconut and their honey taste oily and nutty, smelling a lot like coconut! This bee as well is seldom if at all kept.
Bee keeping is an ancient art, one that brings the beekeeper as well as the bees themselves into a harmonious and happy state of being. Sadly though due to loss of native forest and their flowering trees, shrubs and vines that these bees depend on, as well as increased use of herbicides, and economic pressures on the people, the art of keeping these bees is vanishing and fewer people, despite the joy it brings, are able to keep them.
I hope this article inspires people to look further into the art of keeping bees, both stingless, biters and non-stingless. The benefits are many. It brings one closer to nature, and by keeping bees one aids in the pollination of numerous local plant species.
Studies in Costa Rica have shown that the keeping of stingless bees helps to cross pollinate rare and important tree species found in isolated forest fragments, thus keeping alive greater genetic diversity, necessary for the health of these fragmented forest remnants. (ScienceDaily July 27th 2010).
If you are interested in learning more about raising stingless bees, may this be the beginning of your voyage.
About the Author
Jonathon Miller Weisberger is founder and steward of Guaria de Osa Ecolodge on Costa Rica’s Osa Peninsula where he tends to the garden, guides visiting guests, writes and keeps stingless honey bees. Born in Berkeley California and raised from a very young age in the country of Ecuador. He lived and worked from 1990-2000 among five distinct indigenous communities in the in the Ecuadorian Amazon and Andes, collaborating and overseeing ground level rainforest conservation efforts andethnobotanical field studies.
He likes to consider himself a professional beach bum, but this is far from the truth, quite on the contrary, he is an intrepid and knowledgeable rainforest guide and ethnobotanist, with 20 years of ground level experience, having guided over 700 participants into remote regions of Ecuador, Peru and Costa Rica. He also practices and teaches: Tui Na massage, foot reflexology, Tai Chi and Dao In (Taoist exercises for health), I Ching study, Herbology and is Guaria's on site Surf Instructor.
Jonathon is an enthusiastic storyteller who’s extensive and knowledgeable understanding of rainforest medicinal flora and indigenous life and world- view is unique. Co-author of two ethnobotanical, bi-lingual educational books dedicated to indigenous youth in Amazonian Ecuador, Jonathon has published articles in Spanish and English. He has collected over 2500 herbarium specimens deposited in herbariums in Ecuador and Peru.
He has also collaborated on, initiated and overseen innovative rainforest conservation projects including the creation of biological reserves, de- colonization and the demarcation of indigenous territories, buffer zones around national parks, ancestral lands reclamation and cultural heritage revival. He has been influential in saving thousands of hectares of rainforest lands primarily in Ecuador on behalf of the projects.
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