The Attack of the Stingless Bees!

This morning I helped our new agriculture intern, Riza, clear a fallen tree out of the rainforest mysteries trail. The tree, which was a standing dead tree, had just fallen a few days ago, and was already decomposing to dirt! With all the millions of bacteria, thousands of fungi, and armies of termites and other critters, things return back to their elements very quickly here. So many things were feeding off the tree—there was even a crab!

After clearing the path, Riza wanted a photo of himself up in a tree covered with large strong vines. After clamoring up the vines a bit he exclaimed, “What are these?” Remembering that there was a trigona bee hive—stingless bees—on the back of the tree, I told him what they were and not to worry—stingless bees are harmless, right? The tree has a very large circumference and since the nest is on the opposite side of which we were climbing, I didn’t think the bees would be very disturbed. After Riza got down, I decided that I wanted a photo too. As I climbed the tree, I began to notice that the bees were definitely disturbed and quite unhappy. But, since they don’t sting, I continued up worry free so I could get a great photo.

Before long though, I noticed that although the bees did not sting, they definitely had a knack of getting everywhere and biting! Soon I was squealing, “Ahhh, they’re in my hair! They’re biting my scalp! They’re everywhere!” Followed by, “Oh no, what is that?!” It looked like a mosquito the size of my fist, and it was coming right at me! I called to Riza to take my photo fast, made a smile that probably looked more like a grimace, and jumped out of the tree, frantically shaking my hair and pulling bees off my clothes. I scurried away, losing my balance and wobbling all over the place and eventually got all the bees off. Now that I think about it, Steven did warn me about the stingless bees and how they have a knack of crawling up your nose, getting in your ears, and just getting everywhere. Next time, I will never doubt the ferocity of insects, even stingless ones!

Rainforest Tours