Bee-ing in touch with nature
A born and bred city girl retires from the rat race and makes a connection with nature with the help of gentle stingless bees.
AFTER Faridah Khalid, 55, left her job as the head of human resource services of RHB Banking Group in April 2016, she was looking for a new hobby when she encountered stingless bees at her uncle’s house.
Intrigued by these bees, known also as trigona or kelulut bees, she decided to try her hand at stingless bee-keeping.
Since then, she has turned her backyard in Hulu Langat, Selangor, into a home for 70 native stingless bee hives with the support and help of her husband, Wan Ahmad Fuad Wan Abd Aziz, 58, a relationship manager at Affin Bank.
Their journey has not been without challenges. As a city girl born and bred in Petaling Jaya, she had a fear of bees and no knowledge about them, but her determination to learn and care for the gentle creatures became a route back to nature and to the formation of connections with the community around her.
There are over 500 different types of stingless bees in the world with 40 found in Malaysia. As the name suggests, stingless bees do not sting and are generally harmless to humans. They are a different species to honey bees, and have their own characteristics and honey properties, and grow their hives in the hollow trunks of trees.
In this month’s gardening column, we learn about native stingless bees and Faridah’s and Fuad’s sweet journey with them.
Why did you start bee keeping? Faridah: I fell in love at first sight when I saw this interesting creature at a relative’s house in Kuantan. Not knowing anything about the bees or what to expect, I placed an order for hives. The minimum order was 30 hives.
I wasn’t doing it for commercial value. I just wanted to do something after I left the bank to get my brain going and I had space in my house.
What bees do you have? Faridah: Now I have about 70 hives with nine different species: Heterotrigona itama, Homotrigona alicaeae, Homotrigona fimbriata, Lepidrotrigona terminata, Lophotrigona Canifrons, Tetragonilla atripes, Tetragonula laeviceps, Tetrigona apicalis, and Tetrigona binghami.
What were the first few months like? Faridah: The first three months were hell, because I knew nothing about bees or gardening! Then when the logs (bee hives) arrived, one by one, the bees disappeared!
The seller told us you don’t have to feed them, just give them water. There was nothing around then except for some jackfruit trees and I cut them down to make room for the logs. How naive I was, because I knew absolutely nothing!
From there, I started researching day and night in books, on Google, and through asking other people. But even then, it wasn’t enough because different people have different sources, environments, plants, species.
That’s when I started to learn from the bees themselves. I would start my day at seven in the morning, sitting down for hours to see what they do and how they live. That’s how I gained information and knowledge.
What do the bees need? Faridah: The most important resources that you need to have around are resin, or damar, for them to make propolis (a resinous mixture bees produce to use as a sealant); flowers for nectar and pollen; and, of course, water. You must make sure the surrounding is clean, and it’s all within about 2km radius of your area, because they can only fly 2km.
You cannot burn anything in this space, no fogging, no chemical pesticides. I pay people to cut grass for my neighbours’ compounds because before this, they would use pesticides or poisonous substances.
Fuad: If there is enough resin, propolis, nectar and pollen for them to produce honey, they are happy here.
What plants do bees like? Faridah: Plants with tiny flowers with nectar as their source of food such as air mata pengantin or Honolulu creeper, herbs, fruit trees like star fruit and ciku; trees that produce resin, such as rubber trees, jackfruit, tapioca, cempedak, and noni fruit or mengkudu.
Fuad: Acacia trees are complete with resin and flowers for honey and pollen. And also rubber trees. These two trees are complete plants for stingless bees.
How do you care for them?
Fuad: They’re very sensitive. You have to take care of them, to make them stay. You have to know their predators and make sure the area is clean and there is no build up of water in the log or that it is exposed to direct sunlight as the propolis structure may melt.
You have to maintain the ideal temperature for them to work, and develop. Avoid areas that are too cold. We don’t use any chemicals at all here either. Even our fertilisers are home-made, we make our own compost. What are their predators?
Fuad: Lizards, beetles, spiders, black soldier fly larvae are considered predators. With ants, there are many different kinds. Termites, too, as they will destroy the logs.
How much honey can you harvest from the hive?
Fuad: It depends on the geographical condition of the area. This will influence the resources that these bees bring back. They will build the pods using propolis from the resin or damar available. It also depends on weather and the month.
During fruiting season, they will go out and bring back a lot of honey or pollen. Both are for their own consumption and their brood cells.
We leave about 40% for them. We can harvest 1kg per hive every week, and during fruiting season 15kg per hive every month.
What do you do with the honey? Faridah: I make raw and rare (unprocessed) honey, honey soap with propolis and turmeric, honey soap with propolis, candle tree and neem, and propolis oils
What do you enjoy most about taking care of the bees?
Faridah: It’s relaxing, and de-stressing. It brings happiness to me. I led a very stressful life before. But now, I can just sit down with the bees for three hours non-stop and I get so much peace. Very good therapy. And I lost 8kg in three months!
I’m so happy that this is the path that I chose. With the bees, I learn something new every day.
Any advice for someone who wants to start bee-keeping?
Faridah: Number one, you must know whether your area has resources to cater to their needs before you set up the infrastructure for the stingless bees.
You need to plant lots of trees and flowers for the bees. The trees for the resin, the plants/flowers for the nectar and pollen, and water.
Can you keep bees in an urban area? Fuad: You can rear the bees in housing areas, as long as there are resources. But you need to know how many hives to have.
For example, if you’re in a terrace house and you have one hive, and with one ciku tree, one Honolulu creeper, with a fish pond, they may survive. But if you put more logs at one go, they may not survive because there are not enough resources for all the bees.
Anything you would like to add? Faridah: We need to teach the youngsters the importance of bees to our environment as pollinators. Without bees, they won’t get the trees around them.
Before this I used to be scared of them so I would burn them (the hives), not realising how important they are to us. Now, I won’t even kill a single one. We need to educate people about why we shouldn’t be scared of them.
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