Stingless bees

 I met so many new people today. I can only hope I can remember most of their names at least! They were all very nice to me and welcoming. Some even refer to themselves as my Kenyan Family! J I met my mentor today. His name is DeDe. (I am not sure if I spelled that right) He showed me around icipe’s bee research center and he also showed me the center for silk worms and producing silk. It was all very interesting and I learned so many things!

The bees interest me the most. I saw a few different hives icipe uses. I looked at honeybees, African bees, carpenter bees, and stingless bees. I was shown how the honey is extracted and then I was allowed to taste honey from different species. All the honeys were very sweet. The honey from the stingless bees is very sweet! Probably the sweetest honey I have ever tasted. I learned about bee venom extraction and Royal Jelly Extraction. I also learned about artificial insemination of the queens and how this is done.

The tour of the silk was very interesting also. It was a process I knew very little about. I went from the cocoon of the moths to spinning raw silk, to refining it, and finally to the weaving part.

I can tell I have still not fully recovered from traveling. I hope I do soon. It’s more of a nuisance than anything. I feel I will sleep very well tonight. J

Tomorrow is my introduction to my work and main orientation. I spoke today with Susan who asked what I was interested in. She listed some possibilities of what I could do while here. Just hearing about all the things I will do and experience is exciting!

I also learned today what icipe hopes to have as my research study for the summer. Currently, the idea is to study the oviposition of a few breeds of stingless bees. The number of breeds is still being decided. This is a project icipe has never done before, so it is my responsibility to decide how I would like to study the bees and the hive and how I will mark the various kinds of cells. The cells and hives of the stingless bee are much different from the hives I am familiar with at home. The bees themselves are in between the size of a gnat and a housefly, and their hive is only a little bigger than a regular Kleenex box. Also the way they fashion comb and brood is different. The comb at home is formed as hexagonal cells. The cells of the stingless bees are more of just cluster of small cocoon like homes. They fill these with food, and then the queen will lay the eggs. It is then sealed. I is my job for the summer to study the differences between the two breeds oviposition patterns as well as study and graph their morphology from egg to fully grown bee. I present my ideas tomorrow with how I think we should move forward.

Wish me luck!