Introduction:

World Honey Bee Day (16 August 2025) served as a reminder of the invaluable role played by honey bees in our lives. While most of us consume honey from neatly packaged bottles, we often forget the tremendous effort behind every drop. Thousands of honey bee workers collectively store food for their young ones and to sustain their colony Humans, however, harvest this honey, benefitting from the collective action of the honey bees.

Honey bees are social insects which live in colonies, each individual contributing to the survival of the group. A single worker bee spends an entire day collecting nectar and pollen, which are later processed into honey, royal jelly and other hive products. Known for their efficiency, honey bees are faster nectar collectors compared to many other pollinators.

Besides honey production, bees are indispensable to agriculture. Nearly 75% of the global crops depend on pollinators like bees for fruit and seed production (FAO). Cross-pollinated crops, especially those with separate male and female flowers, such as cucurbits (pumpkin, cucumber), rely heavily on the pollinators with bees functioning as mediators of fertilization.

Diversity of Honey Bees in India:

In India, three commonly recognized species of honey bees are:

Apis dorsata (Rock bee)

Apis cerana indica (Indian Honey Bee)

Apis florea (Dwarf or Garden bee)

However, another lesser known group of bees plays a silent but significant role in pollination and ecosystem services – Stingless (Tetragonula iridipennis)

Stingless Bees: Small but significant:  Stingless bees often mistaken for small flies, live in small colonies within wall crevices, hollow tree trunks, and logs. Though tiny, they are powerful pollinators of crops such as brinjal (egg plant), tomato, ash gourd, beans and various wild shrubs, herbs and trees. They also produce honey, stored in small resinous pots.  This honey is highly valued in Ayurvedic medicine for its medicinal properties.   

Conservation of Stingless bees for Sustainable Agroecological System

In Sabbanhalli village near Bilikere, in Hunsur block of Karnataka, more than 50 stingless bee colonies were documented in the village, inside the farmhouse – a pump house made up of mud bricks. These colonies supported pollination of local crops and surrounding vegetation. However, a challenge emerged with the transition from mud brick farmhouses to cement brick construction. Unlike mud, cement brick walls do not provide suitable nesting cavities, thereby threatening the natural habitat of stingless bees due to harmful chemical pesticides used in commercial crops like cabbage.

Conservation efforts:

To address this issue, awareness programmes were initiated with the farmers through the following measures:

Colony rescue and Transfer: Natural colonies were carefully harvested and transferred to wooden bee boxes, enabling easier management and honey collection.

Training Programmes: Farmers were trained in stingless bee rearing, hive management and sustainable honey harvesting.

Habitat Conservation: Observations revealed that colonies thrived near jackfruit and coconut plantations, as these plants provided resin essential for building nests. Thus, promoting these crops indirectly and by introducing intercropping, stripe cropping, niger, sunflower and other nectar source crops, the survival of stingless bees is supported.

Ecological and Agricultural Significance: Stingless bees (T. iridipennis) are highly organized, with a social structure comprising of a queen, drones (males), workers and soldier bees. Workers not only forage but also clean and maintain the colony. Their ability to pollinate a wide variety of crops makes them vital for food security and biodiversity.

By conserving stingless bees, multiple benefits can be secured such as

1. Enhanced Crop yields through pollination
2. Preservation of biodiversity in agroecosystems
3. Production of high-value medicinal honey
4. Community–based income generation opportunities.

Reference:

https://www.fao.org/pollination/about/en#

Vinod Borse, Sadashiv Nimbalkar, Deepak Patil, and Sagar Jadhav

Agroecological Conservationists

BAIF Development Research Foundation, India