Talk:Beekeeping

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	Agropedia Portal This article is within the scope of the WikiProject Agriculture, which collaborates on articles related to agriculture. To participate, you can edit this article or visit the project page for more details.
B	This article has been rated as B-class on the quality scale.
High	This article has been rated as High-importance on the importance scale.
	This article is supported by the Beekeeping task force. (rated as Top importance)
Assessment comments This article has been rated for quality and/or importance but has no comments yet. If appropriate, please review the article and then leave comments here to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article and what work it will need.

The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Please improve this article or discuss the issue on the talk page.

WikiProject Echo has identified Beekeeping as a foreign language featured article. You may be able to improve this article with information from the French language Wikipedia.

Beekeeping is included in the 2007 Wikipedia for Schools, or is a candidate for inclusion in future versions. Please maintain high quality standards, and make an extra effort to include free images, because non-free images cannot be used on the CDs.

Contents 1 Single Queen 2 Geographic scope 3 Becoming a beekeeper 4 Housel positioning 5 Merge from beehive 6 Edit on Smoker 7 Translation 8 WikiProject Beekeeping 9 Colony Collapse Disorder 10 Africianized Bees & Bumblebees 11 new contributor 12 Structure of the article 13 19th century or 9th Century BC 14 Criticism 15 Art of Beekeeping 16 Criticism section discussion 17 other species 18 Carl Sheritt 19 Western beekeeping environmentally damaging 20 Drafts new section (already added main article) 21 Indiginous beekeeping 22 fabric beehives 23 DIY Beekeeping

[edit] Single Queen

As the article stands it now states that hives can "have only one queen," which is important information that hasn't been relayed to the bees. I'm reluctant to go in and just change it because the result will be something like "The first queen to emerge may kill her rivals. Or she may not, depending on whether or not the workers allow her to. This is because the hive usually contains more than one queen, but occasionally has two (or three!). Given that there is a view of multi queen hives as "unnatural" I'm curious what others think before I reword this to recognize that it's not always a battle royale between queens. XC0000005 16:01, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

You are correct that there are some rare instances where a colony will tolerate two queens simultaneously. However, it is a very rare situation for European Honeybees. Furthermore, all the research I've read on the topic determined that the multi-queen situation only occurs as a mother-daughter pairing. I know of no confirmed cases of sisters co-existing for more than a few hours. There is no confirmed research showing why or how the multi-queen scenario arises but one hypothesis is that the old queen prepares to swarm but at the last minute the weather changes for long enough that whatever triggered the swarming instinct is no longer in play.
To be honest, it's such a rare occurence that I'm not sure how you could integrate it into the article without giving the impression that it's more common than it is. It's also so very rare that it has no appreciable effect on beekeeping itself. It might be an aside best discussed in one of the articles about the insects (rather than the profession). Rossami (talk) 17:50, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Note: It is possible for a beekeeper to deliberately manipulate a "colony" to maintain two queens. The queens are kept separate artificially - such as through the use of a queen excluder. But in that case what you're really doing is maintaining two separate colonies with separate brood spaces but combined honeysupering space. There was an article about this practice in the BeeCulture magazine last year. (Don't remember exactly when, though.) Rossami (talk) 17:50, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm aware of the manual manipulation - That would definitely fall under the outside article section in my opinion because there's a lot of things you can get bees (or anything else) to do with enough intervention. You are probably correct though that this would result in making it appear much more common than it is. Thanks. XC0000005 15:02, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Geographic scope

I've added the above notice because only the introduction of the article briefly states that bee-keeping is a very old occupation and that it has been practiced for centuries by many cultures all over the world. The article gives the impression that bee-keeping is only relevant in Western contexts. One rough and ready example I can remember is that many East-African hunter-gatherer groups have traditionally used bee-keeping as an additional subsistence method (see e.g. Yaaku or Akie). — mark ✎ 22:32, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

• The distinction needs to be made between bee-keeping and bee-robbing, which some folks fuzz up. That said, it is definitely a need to have some editors help us from more areas of the world. Pollinator 23:10, May 24, 2005 (UTC)

From my knowledge, the Japanese and the Chinese both practice beekeeping, as well as several other cultures. Though, what do you mean by: "The distinction needs to be made between bee-keeping and bee-robbing, which some folks fuzz up." Is that in this topic?--Shark Fin 101 20:01, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Becoming a beekeeper

Can we add a section on becoming a beekeeper (Materials, starter kits, common laws and regulations regarding beekeeping and cities)? I looked this page up for that very reason, and there is not even a single link for that. (outside of the associations, which are not very helpful themselves) User:Grinick 17:15, Sep 18, 2005

• We might be able to say a few things here but an in-depth discussion might be better over in Wikibooks since we would be writing a "how-to" for beekeeping. We could, of course, freely link between the two articles. Let's make a start. Rossami (talk) 14:35, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
  • And now I discover that an in-depth Wikibook already has been started. See b:Beekeeping. Rossami (talk)
    • It doesn't look like the Wikibook is going anywhere. I get the impression that there was only one person working on it and they lost interest. Unless I see some response here from people who have time to devote to a bigger effort, I'd be more inclined to spend time on the Wikipedia material than on the book. A short section on becoming a beekeeper would be appropriate here. MnSteve 21:56, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Housel positioning

I've merged in the text from Housel Positioning. It's in its own section right now, which I'm not *entirely* happy with. It would probably be (no pun intended) better if there was a section on "beekeeping practises" or the like, to include such things as Housel positioning.—chris.lawson (talk) 15:45, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Actually, there is a separate article on beekeeping practices which would probably be better for this content. I would move it straight to the Talk page for discussion first, though. I wrote a paper about 2 years ago on Housel positioning. The existence of the theorized center comb has never been independently confirmed. Housel reports finding it in feral colonies but other beekeepers looking at other feral colonies find no such pattern. Furthermore, a 3-D model of such a comb shows that it would either take an inordinately greater amount of wax than the center structure of any other comb or it result in a flat-bottomed cell - which would be a sub-optimal use of volume and different than all other comb. While Housel's theory has been published, it has not been confirmed and is generally considered to be a fringe theory by most bee researchers. Rossami (talk) 04:03, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Feel free to move it when you get a chance. I was just doing some RC patrol and general cleanup when this ended up on my to-do list. Not that beekeeping isn't interesting -- my mom is kinda into it, actually -- but you're probably better-qualified to make the merge and move.--chris.lawson 04:09, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Merge from beehive

• I suggest that content from Beehive (beekeeping) be merged into this article's section on equipment, because there is a lot of useful information in it which I believe has a place in this article.Martinp23 15:48, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
  • I doubt anyone disagrees in theory but that page was originally broken out from this page because the page was getting too big. How do you propose to carry out the merger? Rossami (talk) 14:09, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
    • It makes more sense to act on the suggestions already made to merge Langstroth hive, Top-bar hive, and Honey super into Beehive. That would result in a reasonably long article on the subject of beehives that could be reasonably linkied from the Beekeeping article. MnSteve 01:38, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
      • I wasn't aware of the previous length of the article (Rossami), and looking at it again, I agree. I also agree with MnSteve but perhaps there should be at least something on this page about each of the hive types - ie a condensed version of info in Beehive (beekeeping) (I have bullet points in mind). What do you think? Martinp23 19:54, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
      • I agree in merging --Mrtobacco 15:43, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
      • Personally, I don't think it would make a good merge. The other merges, suggested above make more sense overall to begin with if those were to occur. Radagast83 22:20, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Edit on Smoker

I've tried to re-word for clarity the section on smokers. It's bordering on too much material for this section, I think. --XC0000005 06:13, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Translation

Hi - I'm going to work on a more complete translation of this article from the French (fr:Apiculture) in my user-area. I'm then thinking of presenting it there for your ideas, before (hopefully) incorporting it into this article. Any suggestions/thoughts :)? Martinp23 22:16, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject Beekeeping

I've put this article in WikiProject Beekeeping to help organisation and improvement of articles. I'm just trying to rustle up interest - if anyone is interested in being a member, please just sign up on the main project page - you can do as much or little as you like! Martinp23 17:07, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Colony Collapse Disorder

Just a thought: I have been working on the CCD article, and wanted to read up a bit about beekeeping. I noticed that this article did have a section about Bee rentals for pollination, a major source of income for beekeepers, (although there is a nice picture of the truck moving the bees top right) Kgrr 15:40, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Africianized Bees & Bumblebees

This article also need some type of reference to the spread northwards of Africanized bees, who're making hives deadly to people (I forget the specific term for the attacks), and the fact that honeybees have displaced bumblebees and other native N.American pollinators out of many areas. Non-native species invasion type stuff.
~ender 2007-05-12 20:26:PM MST —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.167.217.162 (talk) 03:22, 13 May 2007 (UTC).

The "Non-native" thing gets wearisome, because it's so overblown. If you are worried about non-native species, in order to be logically consistent, you need to leave the Americas, because humans are not native, despite some being referred to as such. Secondly, there is such a multitude of parasites and predators that prey upon native bees, that the threat of competition of honey bees is only a small part of the totality of the threats that native bees must face and overcome. Thirdly, wherever conditions are good for bees (plenty of forage, and little insecticide use), both honey bees and native bees can generally be found in abundance, happily working on different plant species. In other areas that are barren of forage, or have a constant barrage of insecticides, neither type of bee is apt to be found. Areas of good biodiversity have more nectar sources than can be utilised by the bees; it's mostly assumption that they have outcompeted native species. And Wikipedia is not built on assumptions. Pollinator 03:53, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] new contributor

Hi there - I am a newbie editor ( a beekeeper) and have just made a sizeable contribution to the Beekeeping article. I hope that in doing so I have not transgressed the etiquette of editing but I amj on a steep learning curve so I apoligise in advance if I have miffed anyone. I am trying to get up to speed and will gratefully accept any advice or comments you have to make. Borderglider 23:06, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, your work (and others) has improved this article greatly. What it really need before going any further is citation of verifiable references. It's really painful to write a great article and then do the citations at the end. ike9898 00:46, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Structure of the article

Through a series of recent edits, the structure of this article has become very confused. The article is jumping from one topic to another, back to the first, on to a third and so on. We've got content glued in from other pages and inconsistent levels of detail.

I'd like to propose that we step back from the article for a bit and work on a coherent table of contents. Some initial thoughts are below. I'd appreciate input. Rossami (talk) 23:44, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

The current TOC dablinks Introductory paragraph 1 History of beekeeping 1.1 Origins 1.2 Wild Honey Harvesting 1.3 Domestication of Wild Bees 1.4 The Scientific Study of Honey Bees 1.5 Invention of the Moveable Comb Hive 1.6 The Evolution of Hive Designs 1.7 Pioneers of practical and commercial beekeeping 2 Traditional beekeeping 2.1 Fixed frame hives 3 Modern beekeeping 3.1 Movable frame hives 3.2 Top Bar Hives 3.3 Protective clothing 3.4 Smoker 4 Beekeeping in the United States 4.1 Development of Beekeeping in the United States 4.2 Types of beekeepers 4.3 Bee rentals and migratory beekeeping 5 The Colony of Bees 5.1 Structure of a Bee Colony 5.2 Annual Cycle of A Bee Colony 5.3 Art of beekeeping 6 Formation of new colonies 6.1 Colony Reproduction; Swarming and Supersedure 6.2 Factors Which Trigger Swarming 6.3 Artificial swarming 7 World apiculture 7.1 Europe and Russian Federation 7.2 North America 7.3 Latin America 7.4 Oceania 7.5 Asia 7.6 Africa 8 Images of harvesting honey 9 Criticism 10 Notes 11 See also BeeColonyMemberTypes Template 12 External links

The revised TOC dablinks Introductory paragraph Overview - focus on modern practices, scale, etc. Merge Types of beekeepers and Bee rentals and migratory beekeeping Equipment - with links to drill-down articles Products - with links to drill-down articles World apiculture - restructure from list format to table or (better) chart Understanding the bees Structure of a colony - trim & link to the drill-down on Western honeybees Annual cycle Swarming and Supersedure Artificial swarming History of beekeeping Wild Honey Harvesting Domestication of Wild Bees Migration/export of honeybees Scientific study of honeybees Invention of the Moveable Comb Hive - link to drill-down beehive Current research Criticism Image gallery See also Notes and references Additional references and external links BeeColonyMemberTypes Template

Any objections to the proposed restructuring? Any better ideas or improvements? Rossami (talk) 02:33, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 19th century or 9th Century BC

What am I missing here. The article says "the destruction of the bee colony meant the loss of a valuable resource; this drawback persisted until the 19th Century". Associated press tells me "Archaeologists digging in northern Israel have discovered evidence of a 3,000-year-old beekeeping industry, including remnants of ancient honeycombs, beeswax and what they believe are the oldest intact beehives ever found." Maybe this is actually something really new, but I thought beekeeping as described in the AP article was at least 2000 years old. —  Randall Bart   Talk  19:00, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Beekeeping has existed since prehistory but harvesting the honey meant breaking open the hive and pulling out the combs. Doing so disrupted the colony, scattered the bees and took away their honey, stored pollen and whatever brood was in the colony at the time. Harvesting like that almost always resulted in the destruction of the colony being harvested. (Worse, most beekeepers of the time deliberately killed the colony before starting their harvest. It was the only way to avoid getting stung by all the bees who were being displaced.) The beekeeper had to collect new bees - usually from swarms - for the next year. These "traditional" practices persisted for millenia. Only in the 19th century or so did people learn how to manage honey bees to separate the brood chamber from the honey supers so they could take a harvest without killing the colony.

Then when movable frames were invented, you could open the hive and make splits - artifical swarms - so you could make two (or more) colonies and grow them all. Beekeepers no longer had to trust to luck in finding feral swarms.

The Beehive (beekeeping) article has a more detailed description of the history. Rossami (talk) 21:08, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Criticism

This is an article about beekeeping. It is not an article about Vegan philosophy or PETA's view of animal husbandry. I don't think the criticism belongs here. Should we add a section for people who are afraid or bees or allergic to them who would rather we weren't allowed to even keep bees? Of course not. Those are all different subjects entirely. This belongs in an article on PETA or maybe in an article on Vegans.

If we are going this direction, I could add pages and pages of controversial beekeeping ideas, and they would actually be more relevant to an article on beekeeping, but I don't think they would elucidate the subject of beekeeping in a way that an encyclopedia should, but rather would muddle things up in an unnecessary way. Michael Bush 15:02, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I aggree. That pagespace could be put to better use on a subject with relevance to beekeeping. Not going to rip it out sans input from others but it's a good idea.XC0000005 14:56, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Art of Beekeeping

I sat down to re-write this section today to address the essay tag and wound up removing it in its entirety. As I went through it, I noticed that most of the information in the section was already in previous sections or the following section. The only thing I did not note elsewhere was any sort of note that breaks/changes in the brood cycle are desireable for honey production (especially comb honey). If someone disagrees, I'm sure it will be resurrected in due time.

[edit] Criticism section discussion

Pasted below is the section removed from main article for discussion here.

==Criticism==
The animal rights group PETA has considered beekeeping an unethical activity, claiming that "honeybees are victims of unnatural living conditions, genetic manipulation, and stressful transportation." ^[1]

1. ^ PETA: "honeybees are victims of unnatural living conditions, genetic manipulation, and stressful transportation."

This section I regard as a form of vandalism. Do I go put my point of view on the PETA article? The above comments would not be out of place in the PETA article but in my opinion they do not belong here. Could we have some discussion on this please and try to reach consensus on wether the section belongs in the Beekeeping article or not? Sting_au Talk 04:54, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I think that calling it "vandalism" may be an overstatement. They are a notable group with an official position in opposition to the general concept of beekeeping. The comment itself is verified and seems appropriate to the topic of this article. The fact that I think the PETA people are clueless doesn't change the fact that they sincerely hold this particular belief. I won't be sorry if the consensus here is to delete the section but I think that our policy on neutral presentation may obligate us to retain at least some mention of the opposition to beekeeping.
By the way, I think the stronger argument for removal of the section is in the comment that you left on my Talk page earlier when you asked "Does every primary producer article or breed article need commentary from PETA on it?" If not, why is Beekeeping being singled out? I don't have a good answer for that question. Rossami (talk) 05:20, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Neutral presentation, hmmm? Did you know that the PETA article is semi-protected? So is the Jesus article? No criticism section on either. Ok, Jesus does have "other views" section, but that pertains to different versions of Christianity. My point in mentioning those two articles is that they both cop attack on a regular basis so semi-protecting them was necessary. If someone decided to create a "Criticism of PETA" section on the PETA page it would be reverted in an instant. Anyhow, being a bird breeder I see the occasional article attacked with this is cruelty etc etc remarks. These comments are own point of view (OPV) and have no place in the respective breed articles. The PETA comments would be in no way out of place on the PETA website. Say under "criticism of beekeeping" heading? But this article doesn't need to be weighed down with those comments. If we accept that section we are then obliged to add a reference to every other organization that throws their hat in the ring and announces a criticism of beekeeping. Should we make a list of all the new age vegetarian groups opposed to the cruelty of beekeeping? I mean there must be heaps more than just PETA? Far better to just remove it from the article altogether. Sting_au Talk 06:27, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] other species

the following is a direct quote from another Wikipedia article...

Organisms that are currently being used as pollinators in managed pollination are honey bees, bumblebees, alfalfa leafcutter bees, orchard mason bees, and fuzzyfooted bees.

Shouldn't this article at least mention beekeeping for pollination, and the other (non-honey) bee species used? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.129.213.235 (talk) 16:58, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

The article already mentions pollination several times. I don't see a logical reason to discuss the other species, though, since that would not be part of what is normally considered "beekeeping". Rossami (talk) 21:11, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Carl Sheritt

I was speaking to a friend who is a member of the Vermont Beekeepers Association and he said a man named Carl Sheritt played a prominent role in the development of beekeeping equipment in the United States. He didn't know the details though. I couldn't find any sources online (I may have spelled the name wrong). Has anyone more familiar with the subject matter ever heard of him or his contributions to the field? Doctorfluffy (talk) 18:37, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Western beekeeping environmentally damaging

As western bees are an invasive species and destroy local bees (eg these kinds that do not make a hive), the environmental impact of this type of beekeeping should also be discussed. Especially in Australia, this is leading to huge devestation and decrease of biodiversity (as certain flowers are no longer being able to reproduce trough the eradication of certain indiginous bee-types); an effect of the western bees.

Also, please include a section about indiginous beekeeping. Examples of species used are Melipona beecheeii, ... Indiginous beekeeping (melipona beecheeii). Also, perhaps an extra section on diy-beehive (langstroth hive and indiginous bee-hive) construction may be added. —Preceding unsigned comment added by KVDP (talk • contribs) 10:07, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

You make a strong accusation that there is a causal relationship between the introduction of the western honeybee and the loss of native pollinators. I would like to see actual evidence of that claim. All the available hard research on the topic that I've ever read concludes that western honeybees do not displace native bees, rather that they tend to complement each other. The decline in native pollinating species has instead been traced back to loss of habitat and of the native flowers to agriculture. The non-native flowers are often structurally different from the introduced flowers and the bees are either too large, too small, tongues too short, etc to work the flowers. Western honeybees, on the other hand, coevolved with the introduced food crops. To the extent that western honeybees are able to pollinate the native species, the research shows that it increases the growth and productivity of the native species. The analogy is not that they are taking away part of the pie but that by co-pollinating, they make the pie substantially bigger. Rossami (talk) 14:51, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Information on indiginous/stingless beekeeping (for honey, ...) can be found on this website (include species in Wikipedia-article). This website also has information about the eleven stingless/indiginous honeybees and also provides a reference that Western honeybees are in part responsible (indeed along with agriculture) for the decline of other bee-species (especially in Australia). Finally, this website again gives information (very useful FAQ and on indiginous beespecies (with picture) and finally this website gives information on hives and practical indiginous beekeeping.
I hope this convinces you that my claim that Western honeybees are partly responsible for the decline of native bees is grounded. I also hope that you might include it in the article, along with practical information on indiginous beekeeping (diy indiginous beehive construction, ...) See the beehive article talk page for information on plans (I already upped links there). Just transfer the info to the wiki-articles.
KVDP (talk) 08:12, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Your second link is the only one to discuss species displacement at all. It is a copy of a version of Wikipedia's article on the Honey bee from early 2005. It would be circular reasoning to claim that it is a reliable source for an assertion that the Wikipedia article is now wrong. So, no, the links you provided did not show any new evidence to convince me that there is a substantial link between the introduction of apis mellifera and the decline of other pollinators. But if there were, this still would not be the right article for that discussion. There is already a section at Western honey bee#Environmental hazards that is far more nuanced about hypothesized impacts and better referenced in the limited impacts that have been confirmed. Expansion of that section would appropriate if you have additional hard evidence.
Your other links had some interesting factoids on other bee species that could be integrated into some of those other articles (though some of them also seemed to derive from Wikipedia content). If you see something that's missing, please fix it yourself. However, other than the last link (which covered only the Orchard mason bee), I couldn't find anything that had to do with beekeeping. They were interesting facts about bees that belong on the pages about the respective species.
As to the "practical information" you suggest adding, it is welcome and you should integrate it into the appropriate pages as you have time. Bear in mind, however, that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a how-to guide. Specific plans for beehive construction would probably exceed the preferred level of detail and miss the proper tone for an ideal encyclopedia article. Rossami (talk) 00:15, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

DIY-beeking (diy beehives aswell as wax melters, smokers, ...) is discussed in more detail and practice in the Villageearth SourceBook. See here. Also mentions why its important for poverty alleviation. Take a quick look and include in article. For your other points, perhaps i'll look up more references later-on.

87.64.163.89 (talk) 15:22, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Drafts new section (already added main article)

[edit] Indiginous beekeeping

With growing intrest in green agriculture and farming, there is a increase in using indiginous bees (as Melipona beecheeii) for honey production ^[1]. In addition, production of alternative sweeteners are also being stepped up, with many farmers opting for plants as Stevia instead of western (non-indiginous) bees ^[2]. Especially in Australia, many organisations are supporting this trend, and is this is lately also being advocated by government institutions. ^{[3] [4] [5] [6]}

[edit] fabric beehives

I've thought beehives could be made of modern fabrics then hoisted up on trees as a kind of portable beekeeping that gives hikers n travelling persons honey n pollen http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/fabric_20beehives —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.86.14.114 (talk) 21:59, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] DIY Beekeeping

With a growing intrest in the developing world for beekeeping, DIY-construction of hives and other materials ^[7]has risen sharply and more and more information about their construction is now available trough the internet. This, as one of the essential elements in the developing world is the price of the materials needed, and in these parts there is an essential lack of this. Especially appropriate technology organisations as VillageEarth are making a great contribution to diy beekeeping. Besides regular hives for Western bees (langstroth hives, top-bar hives, ...) ^{[8] [9] [10][11]}.

Please sign your posts on the talk page. The information you added needs a cleanup. Poor spelling and problems with the links (did you see how they looked in the reference section?). Better to use citeweb templates as they are meant to be used. Some of what you added seems to be pretty much just personal opinion? For example, "With growing intrest in green agriculture and farming, there is a growing intrest in using indiginous bees (as Melipona beecheeii) for honey production." Apart from spelling interest incorrectly where is the growing interest in that species of bee so apparent? A few rural villagers collecting honey doesn't constitute a growing interest now does it? I'm going to revert your edits on the article as I find they detract from the quality of the article as a whole. Sting au Buzz Me... 22:51, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Added extra references, perhaps its already well enough to upload ?

87.64.205.33 (talk) 10:27, 19 March 2008 (UTC)