Stingless bees in urban areas: a new leisure activity or a honey trade - the example of Chapeco, an average town of Santa Catarina, Brazil

摘要

On a worldwide scale, Brazil is the country hosting the greatest number of stingless bee species. The species natural distribution favours the Amazonian basin, even though the Meliponinies settlement area (family to which these insects belong) covers the entire national territory. In southern Brazil, Meliponinies domestication for a long time concerned exclusively the Tetragonisca angustula, a very common species in Latin America, and some melipona: Melipona bicolor, M. marginata, M. quadrifasciata. The harsh pressure on nests linked with the destruction of natural habitats provoked a tremendous decline in wild bee populations. In the state of Santa Catarina, a majority of native bees is still threatened of disappearing despite a very restrictive law adopted in August 2004 by the Brazilian parliament. In urban areas like Chapecó city (175,000 inhabitants), the breeding of Meliponinies has been developing intensively over the past fifteen years. Nowadays, between 1,800 and 2,000 bee colonies and 21 species of Meliponini are managed in the average sized inland town by 50-80 new bee-keepers. Generally they want to sell (honey trade) their production or raise bees as a hobby (leisure). This urban meliponiculture may thus represent a way of conserving these bee species.