Reported by Arif Maulana
[unpad.ac.id, 26/7/2020] The farming of stingless bees (Trigona sp.) has now become prominent because of its promising business potential. However, this popularity threatens the sustainability of trigona bee colonies in the wild. The extensive extraction of colonies out of the forest to acquire their young will only increase the rate of extinction for stingless bees.
Being aware of this danger, a professor of Universitas Padjadjaran’s Faculty of Agroindustrial Technology, Dr. Mahani, M.Si., invented a way to multiply the production of trigona bee offspring quickly and easily. This innovation, which has been developed since 2017, is called the rapid split technique.
Mahani explained that the rapid split technique is derived from other breeding processes that have been done so far. However, the breeding process that is commonly done requires a lot of time. Producing a new colony can take up to 6 months.
By using this technique, the process of breeding a colony can be done rapidly. This technique can already produce a new colony in under one minute.
“The rapid split technique only needs 20 seconds. If a workday is made up of 8 hours, then we should be able to split the bees into a few thousand colonies,” said Mahani.
This breeding process is an effort to ensure the sustainability of the trigona bee ecosystem in the wild. People would not need to take colonies from the forest to be farmed. Because of that, the rapid split technique is a very promising prospect to handle issues with the supply of animal young for farming needs.
The academic who is also a bee farmer also said that the direct extraction of colonies from the forest is not without risk. The shift of bee colonies from being in the wild to being farmed will also shift ecological balance. A massive extraction of colonies from the forest will also invite predators or ecological competitors.
This causes the already farmed colony to not be able to ensure their survival. Mahani mentioned the death rate of trigona bee colonies which can reach 30% per year as they are not able to survive under farming conditions. This happens even though stingless bees are very resistant to diseases when it comes to animals.
“It is true that there are no reports of diseases for the bees in the wild. However, as they start to be farmed, many reports come up surrounding diseases while the people are not ready to handle it,” he said.
If left alone, it is not impossible that the trigona bee population will quickly go extinct because of the extensive extraction and death caused by them not being able to survive the farming process. That is why colony breeding becomes an alternative to ensure ecosystem balance for trigona bee colonies in the wild.
A quick process
The innovation of the rapid split technique is rather simple. According to Mahani, there are a number of important aspects in carrying out the technique. The first thing is to prepare the nest box.
The nest box is first coated with a material containing bee pheromones. Mahani refers to the material as “bee perfume”. The perfume is applied into the walls of the box to ensure the bees are comfortable when moving to the new box. If the perfume is not applied, it will take months for the bees to adapt to the new box.
“The pheromone makes the bees feel that the new box is their habitat,” explained Mahani.
The breeding process is also easy, all that needs to be done is to switch the box containing the breeding bees and the one containing the young. For this process, Mahani developed a box for bees comprising of three boxes stacked vertically. The breeding process only involves switching the box in the middle and the box up top, from breeder to young.
The switching of the boxes does not take much time. With less than 1 minute, the box switching process can already result in a new colony.
Mahani, who also received the propolis innovator award from Business Innovation Center Indonesia, explained further that the formation of a new colony in the nest box is a critical phase. The new colony is still susceptible to moving out from the box. This results in the adaptation process inviting predators.
If not anticipated, the bees can become a delicious meal for the predators. Because of that, the next step is to close the new nest box with propolis. The propolis is meant to protect the colony from many possibilities happening.
The nest box is also given a small hole for mobility. The hole is adjusted with the size of the trigona bees’ body. The bees are, therefore, able to move in and out of the box safely, while predators and competitors can not enter the colony’s box.
“Looking at the level of safety, this becomes a guard for the new colony during its critical phase,” said Mahani.
After 2 months, the new bee colony going through rapid split is already stable. Mahani even stated that in only 3 days, a cone on the bee hive have already grown within the new box. “The rapid split technique is an amazing discovery in split techniques in the world of stingless bee farming,” he added.
The initial idea for developing the rapid split technique came from Mahani himself. Mahani keeps continually finding effective techniques so the breeding process of the trigona bee colony does not require a lot of time.
Meanwhile, the design of the nest box is a result of his development efforts alongside bee farmers. Currently, the triple-stacked bee nest box developed by Mahani is already patented.
Developing innovations for feed
The researcher of apiculture at the Department of Food Industrial Technology explains that the rapid technique is possible as long as there are breeder bees ready to procreate. The easiest way to check whether breeder bees are ready to be split is to see whether there are eggs in the middle box.
“If within the second box there are bee eggs at least 1/3 the height of the box itself, the breeder bees are ready to be split,” he said.
However, other issues emerge. The rate of rapid technology is faster than the production of nest boxes ready for breeding. This quick technology should be supported by many nest boxes ready to be used for breeding.
The breeder bees need to be stimulated so they breed diligently. Because of that, Mahani expanded his research horizons into the field of bee supplements. He began developing feed or supplements that are able to stimulate the bees to breed more often.
According to his observations, bees will reproduce more readily in the dry season. The supply of flower pollen is plentiful during the dry season. This pollen acts as a nutritious food for the bees as well as a stimulant for them to breed.
“The pollen which stimulates breeding has a high amino acid score,” explained Mahani.
Scientific analysis persuaded Mahani to develop bee food containing pollen with high amino acids. It is hoped that the result of the research can contribute to increasing the number of breeder bees so the rapid split process can be done intensively.
“Unpad has an extraordinary contribution in developing the apiculture of stingless bees,” said Mahani. (ICP)*
