Honestly, they are extremely different, and while there are transferable skills from apis beekeeping to stingless beekeeping, it is different enough to be a separate hobby entirely.
Apis bees use a wax based honeycomb structure for brood, pollen and honey, whereas stingless bees around the world use tree or plant resins based structures for brood and different resin structures for honey/pollen, and keep them totally separated. As these structures are not as orderly as apis bee frames tend to be, it is much harder to harvest the honey from stingless bees (in Brazil where the honey pots are larger, they use a syringe system to vacuum the honey out of the pots. In Australia where the pots are much smaller, we use a piece of wood with nails sticking out of it to smash all the pots and drain the honey). It is also harder to clone hives due to these structures, as in apis bees you can just take some frames with a queen cell or two and put them in an empty hive and they will hatch into a new hive. In Australia, the most popular method is to literally rip the hive in half and hope both halves survive. You also have to monitor the temperature, because stingless bees have less bees to cool or warm up the hive, and may need help during heat waves or cold snaps to survive.
Having said this, stingless bees are great pollinators, and are totally immune to varroa mites. Their honey is totally different to apis honey due to the flavour contributed by the resin pots the bees store it in and it is extremely interesting (totally worth the extra work to get at). The hives are also much smaller in comparison to an apis hive, so combining their stingless nature into the mix you have a perfect beehive for beekeepers in more urban areas or with younger families.
If you are interested in beekeeping, but not fussed with honey or monitoring for varroa or are worried about getting yourself or people nearby stung by bees, stingless bees native to your region might be be best thing - if maintained, their hives can live longer than we do, and will make you and everyone within half a km of you have great gardens as they go around pollinating everything nearby. Once you have the first hive, you can easily make a second one (the Australian hive design is the OATH and designs for this and upgrades to the standard can be found easily online) and start making your one hive into a ton of hives.
The outbreak we have of varroa is being contained but it looks like we may have it spreading to the larger apis community of Australia now as it has been found many kms away from the initial outbreak. Unfortunately, the baits used are just sugar syrup laced with insecticide, so this is currently wiping out stingless bees alongside the varroa infected apis hives. Many stingless beekeepers have started moving their hives out of the containment zone and giving them to friends and family until the baiting process is complete.
If you have any social bees in your area, consider getting yourself a hive! As said its a bit more work than apis bees, but that’s because the community for non-apis beekeeping is much smaller. The more people in the community, the more knowledge and the more native beekeeping will advance!
I’m from Europe, so there are only apes, and I don’t want to keep theses, as the area aound me is heavilly overbeed. However, I consider keeping/supporting nonsocial bees (or bumblebees), but I haven’t started yet.
Can you elaborate how much is stingless-bee-keeping different from apis-mellifera-beekeeping?
Honestly, they are extremely different, and while there are transferable skills from apis beekeeping to stingless beekeeping, it is different enough to be a separate hobby entirely.
Apis bees use a wax based honeycomb structure for brood, pollen and honey, whereas stingless bees around the world use tree or plant resins based structures for brood and different resin structures for honey/pollen, and keep them totally separated. As these structures are not as orderly as apis bee frames tend to be, it is much harder to harvest the honey from stingless bees (in Brazil where the honey pots are larger, they use a syringe system to vacuum the honey out of the pots. In Australia where the pots are much smaller, we use a piece of wood with nails sticking out of it to smash all the pots and drain the honey). It is also harder to clone hives due to these structures, as in apis bees you can just take some frames with a queen cell or two and put them in an empty hive and they will hatch into a new hive. In Australia, the most popular method is to literally rip the hive in half and hope both halves survive. You also have to monitor the temperature, because stingless bees have less bees to cool or warm up the hive, and may need help during heat waves or cold snaps to survive.
Having said this, stingless bees are great pollinators, and are totally immune to varroa mites. Their honey is totally different to apis honey due to the flavour contributed by the resin pots the bees store it in and it is extremely interesting (totally worth the extra work to get at). The hives are also much smaller in comparison to an apis hive, so combining their stingless nature into the mix you have a perfect beehive for beekeepers in more urban areas or with younger families.
If you are interested in beekeeping, but not fussed with honey or monitoring for varroa or are worried about getting yourself or people nearby stung by bees, stingless bees native to your region might be be best thing - if maintained, their hives can live longer than we do, and will make you and everyone within half a km of you have great gardens as they go around pollinating everything nearby. Once you have the first hive, you can easily make a second one (the Australian hive design is the OATH and designs for this and upgrades to the standard can be found easily online) and start making your one hive into a ton of hives.
TIL varroas have been found in Australia, I’m sorry for that.
And thank you for the explanation.
The outbreak we have of varroa is being contained but it looks like we may have it spreading to the larger apis community of Australia now as it has been found many kms away from the initial outbreak. Unfortunately, the baits used are just sugar syrup laced with insecticide, so this is currently wiping out stingless bees alongside the varroa infected apis hives. Many stingless beekeepers have started moving their hives out of the containment zone and giving them to friends and family until the baiting process is complete.
If you have any social bees in your area, consider getting yourself a hive! As said its a bit more work than apis bees, but that’s because the community for non-apis beekeeping is much smaller. The more people in the community, the more knowledge and the more native beekeeping will advance!
I’m from Europe, so there are only apes, and I don’t want to keep theses, as the area aound me is heavilly overbeed. However, I consider keeping/supporting nonsocial bees (or bumblebees), but I haven’t started yet.