Chapter 7
Stingless Bees of Costa Rica Ingrid Aguilar, Eduardo Herrera, and Gabriel Zamora
7.1
Introduction
The keeping of stingless bees (Apidae, Meliponini), or meliponiculture, is carried out in a rustic and traditional way in tropical America by a variety of ethnic groups and rural populations. This practice has been maintained over time in regions of Mexico, Central America, and South America in countries such as Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru, and Argentina (Mahecha and Nates-Parra 2002; Elizalde et al. 2007; Flores and Sánchez 2010; Jiménez 2011). This is due in part to the cultural value, which this practice holds, but also reflects the interest that has been aroused in consumers of stingless bee honey as a medicinal alternative. The product of these bees that is mostly used is the honey (De Jong 1999; Aguilar 2010; Herrera and Aguilar 2011) and this has generated much interest in the scientific community due to the results achieved by microbiological tests, which have shown that stingless bee honey has antimicrobial properties (Gonçalves et al. 2005; Aguilera et al. 2009; Vit et al. 2009). Paradoxically, in Costa Rica the growing demand for these products coincides with a decrease in the populations of some species of this group, e.g., Melipona beecheii (Villanueva-Gutiérrez et al. 2005; Genaro 2006). This reduction is due to the environmental damage caused by the process of urbanization, the direct consequences of such include loss of forest areas, among other effects. We are thus making scientific progress in recognizing the usefulness of stingless bees in terms of their products and uses in natural folk medicine, as well as pollination services, but at the same time we are losing the natural resource that provides these products and services. This becomes a problem for fulfilling the demands of the market (environmental services of pollination, acquisition of colonies and products such as honey or propolis). Consequently, we must act
I. Aguilar (*) • E. Herrera • G. Zamora Centro de Investigaciones Apícolas Tropicales (CINAT), Universidad Nacional, Apartado Postal, 475-3000 Heredia, Costa Rica e-mail: iaguilar@una.ac.cr P. Vit et al. (eds.), Pot-Honey: A legacy of stingless bees, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4614-4960-7_7, © Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013
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