The ‘red’ bees of Sabah

by Susan and K Mathew*

Introduction

Today, while we read with avid interest about the breeding of new strains of bees for better bee products, or worry over the evils of hybridization, as in the case of Africanized bees, there exists in the quiet tropical forests of Sabah a type of bee. hitherto unknown to the beekeeping world. Is this a new species, race, or variety?

Sabah is one of the two states of Malaysia situated in the tropical island of Borneo. Tropical species of Apis dorsata, Apis cerana, Apis florea and Trigona spp. are very common and bee products are still harvested from the wild by age old methods. A. cerana bees are kept in log hives or ‘Gelodogs'’ by the local people. Recently a different type of bee has been observed; they are larger than A. cerana, but smaller than A. mellifera, and amber gold in colour. they seem to have existed all along with the others in the wild, yet little is known about these bees. While A. cerana bees are known as “Black Bees” locally, the others are referred to as “Red Bees” due to their reddish hue when in a cluster. These names will be used in this article to distinguish between the two types of bees.

Close observations to assess the behaviour of the red bees and preliminary morphometric studies were made to compare them with other known varieties of bees.

Appearance

The dense coating of hair is gold in colour interspersed with brown giving the bee its amber gold tinge. The wings are a light amber gold with dark brown veins. The abdomen is banded dorsally while the ventral side is entirely gold, the colour deepening to a darker amber towards the posterior end.

Behaviour

These bees are very mild. Their hives can be opened most of the time without even smoke or protective garments. No experiments were conducted to verify this aspect in comparison with other varieties of bees. When agitated, black bees pursuit distance is observed to be 60-75 metres while that of red bees is negligible. When the hive is opened they are nervous and excited, and run down the comb. Queens are difficult to find even in small colonies.

The bees are not timid foragers: observing them in the field as well as in robbing situations, they are found to be as aggressive as any other bee.

Although no timing was done, this bee seems to fly more slowly than A. cerana. Whereas the black bees are visible only for about 1-2 metres from the hives due to their speed and manner of flight, the red bees can be followed visually for about 4-5 metres.

Hives

Hives with either six or ten frames were used, with the same frame size ie 32.5 x 17cm.

Since both these varieties of bees collect little or no propolis, and burr combs are seldom built outside the comb area, exact bee-space was maintained only between combs and supers.

Providing a larger entrance seems to help the bees to ventilate the hive better, and encourage them to fly directly to the cluster, rather than alight on the landing board to crawl to the sides of the hive. This also discourages wax moth from laying eggs in the debris accumulated on the bottom board.

Increase in colony strength is rather slow, so red bees are generally hived in six frame hives. Transferring strong colonies to larger ten frame hives ended in the bees absconding. Joining with queenless or weaker colonies also had the same result.

Exchanging a comb having brood in various stages of development between red and black bee colonies resulted in the red bees totally rejecting the black bee comb. The comb was cut down, eggs and larvae were eaten, and the rest were killed and thrown out. Finally the colony absconded too.

In the black colony the brood developed into young bees, and were accepted by the colony as their own. The black queen refused to lay eggs in this comb so the bees stored honey on both sides of the comb. Using red bee combs in black bee hives for honey supers proved to be very successful.

Absconding

Absconding is not a serious problem with A. cerana but swarming is; with the red bees it is vice versa. Are not swarming and absconding two sides of a coin?

Pests

Wax moth (Galleria mellonella) exists with the bees up to a certain stage of development. Strong colonies consistently destroy them. Whenever there are problems in the hive, such as insufficient bees to cover the combs, a weak queen or whatever afflicts the morale of the colony, the infestation is aggravated, forcing the colony to abscond. It seems that wax moth is not the cause of the problem but is rather the effect of it. Remedial measures to correct the situation are of paramount importance to combat wax moth.

Mites (Varroa jacobsoni) are also found in the hives but do not pose a serious threat.

Summary and Conclusions

Apart from the appearance, preliminary morphometric analysis indicates that there are differences between the red bees and other known varieties. To pin point the true identity, more thorough investigation is required.

Temperament and appearance are the most desirable characteristics of these bees, observed thus far. They are good housekeepers, diligent foragers and have little inclination to swarm but they are notorious absconders. Successful selective breeding to eliminate their absconding trait could very well make them “The Italian Bees” of tropical Asia.

If this is a new subspecies we suggest it is known as Apis cerana sabahana.

Acknowledgement

We wish to thank CUSO for sponsoring our beekeeping work in Sabah; Dr EB Tay, Assistant Director, Research Department of Agriculture, Sabah for his guidance and support; Dr Mohamed Muid, Professor at the Universiti Pertanian Malaysia; Ms Sim, Entomologist, and staff at the Agriculture Research Station Tuaran for guiding us in morphometric measurements and IDRC for sponsoring K Mathew to attend the Apis cerana meeting in Kuala Lumpur.

* CUSO volunteers. CUSO, Ontario, Canada.

......................

* Since the Mathews wrote this article further research on the 'Red bee' has been undertaken. The ‘Red bee' is indeed a different species from Apis cerana, however it was already described by Maa in 1953 and named Apis vechti. Two papers discussing Apis vechti have just been published: Rediscovery of Apis vechti (Maa 1953): The Sabah Honey Bee by Tingek, S; Mardan, M; Rinderer T et al. Apidologie, 1988, 19 (1): 97-102 and Reproductive isolation by different time of drone flight between Apis cerana (Fabricius, 1793) and Apis vechti (Maa, 1953) by Koeniger, N; Koeniger, G, Tingek, S$ et al. Apidologie, 1988, 19 (1): 103-106.