A Balinese Bee Adventure
On holiday recently in Bali, Indonesia, beekeeper Ken Brown sought out the locals – bees and beekeepers that is. From unique native bees, to hungry hornets in action, and a captivating array of local honeys sampled, the Auckland Beekeepers Club president reports on his adventures and returning home with much more than the usual suntan-and-Bintang hangover.
By Ken Brown
My idea of a holiday is to make the most of a new place that I've never visited before, usually by exploring the history, food and culture. Now that I am a beekeeper rather than a chef, I have swapped dining out for bees and hornets. However, I have tempered my youthful excesses – the plan for our holiday was to connect with close family, somewhere between Scotland and Aotearoa.
Seasonal beekeeping activities and classes limit when I can be away. It would have been the rainy season in Thailand, so we chose Bali. The villa in Ubud was a tropical paradise for us all; although occasionally referred to as a “mosquito infested hellhole” – after the mozzies had tasted delicate Scottish flesh. It made a change from midges for them though, and they do say a change is as good as a holiday…
I stayed on New Zealand time, four hours ahead, so I had early nights and early mornings. These were great for exploring around the fringes of nearby rice fields and jungle. Insects were most active at this time of day, and I was able to photograph and collect samples of several species of bees and even a very large, yellow-vented hornet. The local security guards and farmers got used to the eccentric, grey-bearded tourist with his camera and bright green, kiddy’s butterfly net.
The yellow Carpenter bee looked like a black bumblebee with a bright yellow buttercup petal on its back, even the wings were black. One of my favourites was the Sunda blue-banded digger bee, a small bee that had blue-green metallic stripes. This bee is known for its unusual pollination technique – it holds a flower and vibrates the wing muscles, dislodging pollen which then clings to its body via static electricity. Locals seemed to be as unaware of their exciting micro-fauna as the average kiwi townie of their own insect life.
Worrying Viewing: Hornets in Action
I did manage to swap a couple of relaxing poolside rest days for excursions around the island. I travelled two hours north to visit a beekeeper near Plago, who keeps Asian honey bees (Apis cerana). There were 10 hives in his apiary, sited in a clearing in the bush.
Yellow-legged hornets were preying on every hive. These hornets were crawling around the hive looking for other entrances and were on the ground scavenging for dying bees. Most commonly though, hornets were hawking in front of the hive i.e. hovering about 25 cm in front of the entrance waiting to catch returning bees that had been foraging. These small bees (half the size of our honey bee) carpeted the front of their hive and, shimmered in waves, this deterred the hornets from approaching the entrance.
The bee’s next defensive mechanism was to approach or depart very quickly - almost too fast to see. I captured extensive GoPro footage of the activity at one of their hives, including the interplay between the bees and yellow-legged hornets.
The honey from the hive was fresh and sweet, with a slightly tropical fruit aroma and subtle tartness. I found the bees so gentle that we didn't need a smoker, gloves or veil.
Bali’s Native Stingless Bees
A few days later I went to the west of the island to the foothills of the Mt Batur volcano. We inspected more Asian honey bee hives and it was interesting to see the hives of the madu kele-kele or native stingless bees. These bees were very small – larger than a fruit fly, but smaller than a juvenile house fly.
I jumped on the back of a motorcycle, and we sped down a jungle path to see the beekeeper’s swarm traps, where he'd placed empty boxes to be populated by a swarm of these tiny bees.
We returned to his family home and inspected his stingless bees. These boxes (smaller than a shoebox) were divided into two interconnected compartments, one for brood and one for food. The former looked like a pile of Rice Krispies; not made of wax, but a resinous propolis with supporting strands. The queen was relatively large compared to the workers – almost the size of a small honeybee. The other compartment was the larder, with piles of honey pots; larger roundish resinous cells filled with honey.
Extraction for the Balinese stingless beekeeper is slower and more tedious than Kiwi beekeepers are used to. Honey from each cell must be syringed or vacuumed out, or the cells must be destroyed by pressing the honey out. These resinous cells impart an earthy flavour to the honey.
Yellow-legged hornets also prey on these tiny insects but, over millions of years, they have adapted to live with these apex predators. Being unable to sting, these bees will use their strong mandibles en masse to attack vulnerable parts of the hornet. More effectively, they will dab propolis on the hornet’s wings and eyes, immobilizing them and, within minutes, mummifying them. Hives in the wild have another defence; long thin entrance tubes made of propolis, making them more easily defendable.
Skip the Beaches and Bintang – Come for the Honey!
A highlight for me was to taste the Balinese bee’s honey. The first thing that stood out from all of these Balinese honeys was their viscosity – they all seemed thinner or waterier than honey from home. I believe this is caused by the higher humidity. I tasted multi-floral honey from bees like ours (A. mellifera), which I’d purchased in the supermarket. The honey was from flowering trees in the bush. It had a floral taste with a fruitiness. I also tasted honey from three other species of native bee - stingless bee, Asian honeybee and the giant honeybee.
The giant honeybee (Apis dorsata) produced honey that tasted most like ours – sweet but with a melony flavour; the aroma was slightly acidic and earthy. It was light and fresh. The Asian bee (Apis cerana) had foraged on Kaliandra, a medium-sized tree from the legume or pea family. The flowers look like a red bottle brush. The honey is opaque with a golden yellow colour. The aroma is of citrus tropical fruit. The taste is mild, slightly acidic, warm banana-like, reminiscent of dilute Perky Nana.The stingless bee (Tetragonula laeviceps) also loves Kaliandra, their honey looks very thin and liquid. It has about 20% to 35% water content – in contrast New Zealand honey usually has less than 18% water content. At first taste, it doesn't taste like honey at all. It is such a surprise, it is very tart almost vinegary. It undergoes a natural fermentation. On second taste it is citrusy with tropical fruits, you can also taste the propolis; it gives a subtle humus, resiny lingering aftertaste. It is worth coming to Indonesia just for a taste of these unusual honeys.
It looks like my future holiday itineraries will be tracking bees and honeys from around the world. Maybe Sainfoin Mountain honey from Kyrgyzstan, Himalayan “mad” honey from Nepal, or while visiting the in-laws with their Scottish heather honey.
In my travels, I did however collect and preserve eight different species of common Balinese insects: three species of hornet, four of bees, and one species of ant. The ant was larger than the stingless bee but was striped like a bee.
Under the Biosecurity Act, it's permissible to bring invertebrates into New Zealand if preserved in ethanol or resin. I must admit there was some excitement at the biosecurity hall at 6am on a Wednesday morning. Our first contact was with a biosecurity officer who had been on New Zealand’s yellow-legged hornet response. She waved us through to the inspection area. The insects weren't the issue though, but my jandals, t-shirt and shorts that I’d used when beekeeping were. We did end up with several biosecurity staff looking at, and taking photos of, my insect collection while listening to my stories of hornet hunting in jandals with my wee Warehouse butterfly net.
By the end of the holiday we were all looking out for the occasional hornet flying around our swimming pool. Stepson Jack’s girlfriend, Caitlyn admitted that she’d never expected to learn so much about bees while on holiday. One convert at a time…
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