Bees for Development :: Tingku - a traditional management technique for Apis dorsata in Indonesia

By Soesilawati Hadisoesilo, Forest and Nature Conservation Research and Development, Indonesia.

The giant honeybee Apis dorsata is one of Indonesia's indigenous honeybee species. It is distributed widely over the Indonesian archipelago excluding the Mollucas and West Papua.

Attempts to manage Apis dorsata in ways used for the cavity-nesting honeybees always fail.1 However, in some parts of Indonesia local techniques are used to manage Apis dorsata colonies so that honey harvest is easier. This technique is similar to “rafter beekeeping” in Vietnam. In the Poso District of Sulawesi this technique is called tingku, in the islands of Bangka and Belitung it is called sunggau, and at Sentarum Lake this technique is called tikung.

TRADITIONAL HONEY COLLECTION FROM APIS DORSATA BINGHAMI

North Pamona sub-district is one of the largest honey producing areas in Sulawesi. Collection from Apis dorsata binghami is from nests hanging under branches of big trees, which are mostly located in primary forest away from villages. The height of the nest is 10-20 m above the ground. Although nobody owns the tree where the bees nest and therefore anyone could harvest any nest, a mark is sometimes made on a tree to signify ownership.

Harvesting takes place in the day and involves one to four people, without ceremony. One person climbs the tree and drives the bees off the nest using a traditional smoker. Once the bees have left the nest, the entire comb is cut and squeezed to extract the honey. This collection method is dangerous and the long distance from the villages means the honey collectors have to stay out overnight.

WHAT IS A TINGKU?

In Poso I saw 66 tingku in five villages. My observations were at the start of the flowering season when only six tingku were occupied, 33 had been occupied previously, and 27 tingku were empty. I interviewed 17 honey collectors.

A tingku can be defined as a man-made micro-habitat or nest support for Apis dorsata binghami, designed to make honey harvest easier for the honey hunter. It is the only traditional management tool for Apis dorsata that is erected without any support from poles on the ground or branches of trees, as with rafter, sunggau, or tikung technjgues. The technology originated at the village of Kelei in the 1930s and has since spread to five neighbouring villages.

HOW TO MAKE A TINGKIJ

A tingku is made of a roughly planed wood plank, or a tree trunk. The lengths of the planks vary between 2.0 and 3.5 m, with widths of 10-25 cm, or 10-20 cm diameter for tree trunks. According to the honey collectors, wood 3-10 cm thick is strong enough to support the honeybees' nest.

Apis dorsata binghami does not appear to be selective concerning the type of wood for its nesting site, however, because a tingku is permanently built, honey collectors prefer to make a tingku from strong wood such as kayu kondongio (Oysoxylum densiflorum), kayu kolahi (Fagraea fragrans) or kayu ampuni (Cycas sp) which last for 10-20 years. Some honey collectors use the branch of Pterocarpus indicus for making a tingku because this branch will sprout, grow and become a living tingku.

There are two subspecies of Apis dorsata in Indonesia: Apis dorsata found all over Indonesia except Sulawesi, and Apis dorsata binghami, endemic to Sulawesi and its surrounding islands.

Apis dorsata dorsata often nest with many colonies together in the same tree, but these nesting aggregations are not observed for Apis dorsata binghami: usually only one or two nests can be found in one tree. The newly emerged workers of Apis dorsata dorsata have pale yellow abdomens that change as the bees get older – the first two abdominal segments become rusty orange and the rest of the abdomen turns black with cream-coloured bands. In constrast, newly emerged Apis dorsata binghami workers are all black with three white abdominal bands.

There are two subspecies of Apis dorsata in Indonesia: Apis dorsata found all over Indonesia except Sulawesi, and Apis dorsata binghami, endemic to Sulawesi and its surrounding islands.

HOW TO ERECT A TINGKU
A tingku is usually erected in secondary forest or in a plantation or garden, where there is plenty of bee forage. The area is hilly and the tingku is inserted into a steep slope 0.5-1.0 m deep, so that the length of the tingku above the ground is 1.5-2.5 m. Both sides of the tingku are covered with leaves and small twigs to avoid disturbance from animals, but the front (in front of the upper end) must be wide open.

If the tingku is 1.0-2.0 m above the ground this is high enough for the bees to build a nest that does not touch the ground or slope. The preferred slope of a tingku to the horizontal for Apis dorsata binghami ranges between 0-30°. To attract bees to build a nest, some honey collectors smear beeswax or honey underneath the tingku plank, where a nest will be built. To test the strength of a tingku, a honey collector will hang on it with his full body weight.

HOW TO MONITOR A TINGKU

Because a tingku is permanent, it can be erected at anytime of year but it must be monitored afterwards, particularly when the flowering season starts. When a tingku is monitored, the areas under and in front of the tingku are cleaned. If a tingku is occupied, further monitoring is carried out four weeks later at which time, if the comb near the upper end of the tingku is swollen, it means that the honey is ready to be harvested.

HOW TO HARVEST HONEY

There are two honey seasons a year: September to December and February to April. Honey is harvested during the day. Because it is very easy to harvest honey from a tingku, a honey collector usually harvests honey by himself and on a fine day can harvest up to ten colonies.

Using a smoker made of dried bamboo, which has been split, and pounded and wrapped with coconut or other palm leaves, the bees are driven off the nest. Smoking is done from behind the tingku. After the bees have left, all the comb is cut and the honey sections are squeezed to extract the honey, which is then strained. One nest can yield 2-20 kg honey, depending on the availability of bee forage.

DISCUSSION

An open space in front of tingku, sunggau, tikung and rafter appears very important in managing Apis dorsata - the bees need a free pathway to leave and enter the nest. An open space is necessary for a nesting site of Apis dorsata. 4 The occupation rate for rafters is higher in a very large open space than in smaller spaces. With tingku, the open space in front of a tingku is usually very large because it is erected on a slope, but open space might not be the only factor that affects the occupation rate for tingku. The Pamona study determined the occupation rate for tingku to be only 50%.

The finished nest in tingku lies close to the ground, because tingku are inserted in sloping land. Therefore the effect of strong winds that might influence the direction of the nest in nature does not apply to tingku.5 This could be one reason why the honey collectors are not more specific about the direction of tingku. Several other factors may affect the occupation rate for tingku: since tingku are usually erected in secondary forest the absence of tall trees, which would be the natural place for Apis dorsata to build nests, might influence the occupation rate of tingku. The availability of bee forage would be another important factor.

More research needs to be done to answer these questions.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I thank The Nature Conservancy for supporting this survey and allowing me to use the data for this article, and Duncan Neville for assistance with editing the language.

REFERENCES

1. MISHRA,R C; DOGRA,G S; GUPTA,P R (1977) An attempt to domesticate rock bee

Apis dorsata F. Indian Bee Journal 36 (1-4): 21.

2. SAKAGAMI,S F;.MATSUMURA,T; ITO,K (1980) Apis laboriosa in Himalaya, the little known world's largest honeybee (Hymenoptera, Apidae). Insect Matsumunara 19: 47-77.

3. OTIS,G W; HADISOESILO,S (1990) Honey

bee survey of South Sulawesi. Journal Penelitian Kehutanan 4 (1): 1-3.

4. CRANE,E (1990) Bees and beekeeping: science, practice and world resources. Comstock Publishing Associates, Cornell University Press; Ithaca, USA; p 274.

5. TAN,N Q; CHINH,P H; THAI,P H; MULDER,V (1997) Rafter beekeeping with

Apis dorsata: some factors affecting the occupation of rafters by bees. Journal of Apicultural Research 36 (1): 49-54.

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[Bees for development Journal #64]