Guys, I’ve decided!
I’m getting a beehive, but not just any hive with your average honeybees.
I’m getting a beehive of stingless bees!
That’s right!
Bees that naturally don’t have stingers!
Trust me, guys: You will find these amazing eusocial insects just as awesome as ants!
Welcome to the AntsCanada ant channel bee edition!
Please SUBSCRIBE to the channel, and hit the BELL icon!
Welcome to the AC Family!
Enjoy!
This week, I was able to do some research and make the preparations needed for my first
bee hive, something I’ve dreamed of doing since I was just a little kid.
Don’t worry, guys, this channel will not be changing its name to BeesCanada, but both
ants and bees do share a lot of things in common, which is understandable since both
ants and bees belong to the same class of insects known as Hymenoptera, but I think
our first bee colony would fit in quite nicely on the channel.
Wouldn’t you think?
Start thinking of names, guys and leave your name suggestions for our first bee colony
in the comments, as we take an intimate look into the neat lives of stingless bees, and
my plans on where we’ll be keeping them, and don’t worry, ant lovers!
I’ll also be showing you some cool ants I saw and filmed later on in this video, as
well as a new queen ant I caught, so be sure to stick around until the end for all that!
So earlier this week, I had the chance to visit a really neat place in the mountains,
with the most beautiful garden of various herbs and flowers.
There were a tonne of awesome ants, too, which again I’ll be showing you in a bit, but
one of the things in this garden I was most excited about, were the stingless bee hives!
AC Family, behold a busy bee hive of Tetragonula biroi, aka stingless bees.
Now stingless bees can be found in most tropical or subtropical regions of the world, but these
girls are a species endemic to the Philippines, where I currently live, and in case you thought
I lived in Canada due to the channel name, you can get your answers after watching this
video, by clicking here, for an explanation as to how I ended up moving to the Philippine
Islands, as it’s a whole other odd story.
But anyway, these stingless bees are super cool!
They are pretty much like normal honey bees but much smaller.
They’re the size of a grain of rice, so pretty much ant-sized.
They typically make their colonies in old bamboo, as seen here and are frequently found
around bamboo or wooden structures.
You’ll notice that some of the bees have these cool yellow balls on their hind legs.
These are called “corbiculae”, or pollen baskets full of pollen collected from flowers.
You see when the bees visit flowers, they do two things: first, drink the sweet nectar
which will be turned into honey back at the nest, but also, they collect pollen grains
which stick to their various body hairs, before getting brushed and compacted the into these
corbiculae or pollen baskets on their hind legs.
Pretty cool that bees have pollen fanny packs on their hind legs right?!
One cool thing, you’ll notice is that some of the bees are just sitting on the outside
of the nest, and around the entrance.
The first thing you need to know about these bees loitering around the outside of the nest
is that they’re the older members of the colony.
Like ants, only the oldest bees are allowed to leave the nest.
The youngest bees stay inside and perform babysitting, queen care, food production,
and home-constructing duties.
Some of these outside bees have a really cool job, literally!
You see how some of these bees stand in place and flap their wings.
Well, these bees are the colony’s climate control managers.
They’re fanning air into the nest to help remove hot air from within the nest.
Pretty cool right?
The bees are also capable of heating up a nest if needed, by collectively buzzing their
wings to generate a wave of heat on cold days.
In this case, though, the bees are in nest cooling mode, as the temperature on this day
was well over 30 degrees C or 86 degrees F.
Heated bees inside the nest can also make the move outside to help keep the inside temperatures
cooler, which is what most of these bees are doing here.
They’re also ready to swarm any small intruder that might try to enter their nest to feed
on their honey, pollen, and larvae.
And AC Family, you won’t believe who their greatest intruders are!
Along this wooden beam, are an army that just love stingles bee honey and will stop at nothing
to get it.
Ants!
This is a species of Nylanderia ant, which are also native to the area, but are the stingless
bee’s greatest enemy.
They come in swarms, transfer information on location of food to members of the colony
super fast, and will often advance onto a hive of stingless bees to devour their honey
and larvae, if given the chance.
Look at them!
These are bee-killers!
Now you might be thinking, ok so if the bees don’t have stingers, how then do they defend
their nests from such honey-loving ants?
Well, the bees have an interesting line of defense: the openings to their hives!
The opening to the hive in stingless bees is quite an amazing structure.
It’s a labyrinth entrance with a specific way in!
Every colony’s hive opening is different, and only the bees know the quickest and correct
way into the heart of their nest from the outside.
To compare, here is the labyrinth entrance of another stingless bee hive not too far
away.
Having a labyrinth-style hive entrance makes it harder for intruders, like ants, to get
inside to steal and eat their honey, young, and queen.
This hole here is one of the many alternative nest entrances that is probably just a decoy
which leads to somewhere other than where the colony is living.
The idea is to stop any invading ants the moment they show up, so while a single patrolling
ant discovers the hive and tries desperately to get inside, it will most likely get lost
in the labyrinth which gives the bees more than enough time to catch the ant and kill
it by biting it or carrying it away from the nest, before it ever gets a chance to make
it back to its colony to call for backup.
It’s an amazing defense strategy against the ants, but sadly, it doesn’t always work.
I noticed this dead stingless bee hive here, which probably lost its battle against an
ant colony.
So is the circle of life, I guess.
Now about having a colony of stingless bees, I plan on officially starting in a few months
just outside the Ant House I’m building.
You can watch a video about that Ant House here if you’re curious, but basically, I’ll
need to plant a lot of flowers and fruit bearing plants in the yard first, as the bees will
need it to thrive.
In fact, these stingless bees are one of the most important pollinators in the agriculture
industry where I live, as they’re small enough to pollinate even the smallest flowerettes.
They improve the quality and yields of so many agricultural produce like coconuts, mango,
and other fruits.
I personally love them and can’t wait to have a hive of stingless bees.
I plan on somehow creating a nest or bee box that I can stick my camera into so we can
have a look at the action inside up close!
Wouldn’t that be something, AC Family?
Let me know your thoughts and if you guys think keeping a stingless bee hive is something
you look forward to for us on this channel.
If any of you are apiculture nerds, I especially would love to hear your ideas and suggestions
on how we can best establish a healthy bee hive or two or five!
Bees, like ants, are extremely important in the ecosystems they are part of.
In this current age where we are hearing about alarming declines in bee populations, habitat
protection, sustainable agricultural practices, and climate change are becoming increasingly
critical topics in mainstream discussions.
I think all of us, AC Family, making up such a large body of the Youtube insect community,
will surely help do our part by discovering what owning a beehive is like once we finally
welcome our great bee hive colony to the channel, and by promoting what we find in our own little
ways, to everyone we know, and hopefully in the process, inspire more people out there,
perhaps some of you watching, to become beekeepers yourselves.
Thank you for watching, and until the day comes when we finally welcome our first bee
hive to channel and have a taste of their sweet honey, always remember guys, it’s
ant and bee love forever!
AC Family, did you enjoy this week’s episode?
I can’t wait for our first hive of stingless bees, so if you haven’t yet, do SMASH that
SUBSCRIBE button and BELL ICON now, and hit ALL so you get notified at every upload.
Also don’t forget to hit the LIKE button every single time including now.
It would really mean a lot to me, guys.
Thank you!
AC Inner Colony, I have left a hidden cookie for you here, for a video of the new queen
ant I found and caught as mentioned at the start of this video.
Go check her out!
And guys, it’s that time of the year again!
We just launched our biggest ant promo yet!
The AC Holidays Sale 2020, where you get 20% off our ac Ant Tower Small and ac Hybrid Nest
Mini over at our shop at antscanada.com, and on top of that, if you use the promo code
“antloveforever2020”, you get our Ultimate Ant Keeping Handbook ebook, complete with
care guides on specific commonly kept ant species, totally free, which you can add to
your cart before checking out!
Our easy-to-use ant farms which you see me use in my videos, make an awesome holiday
gift for anyone who loves ants!
We ship worldwide and also offer full email support if you need our help!
Plus, if you didn’t catch a queen ant this season and need ants, just visit the QUEEN
ANTS FOR SALE tab on our site to look for ant colony sellers in your area.
Just a reminder this promo ends January 1st and you need to order before December 17th
if within US or December 10th if outside the US, if you hope to receive your package before
Christmas, so visit AntsCanada.com today, and own your very own ac Ant Farm and pet
ant colony.
And now it’s time for the AC Question of the Week.
Last week, we asked:
Why would making the pyramids hollow make things more complicated for us?
Congratulations to Morgan Jackson who answered:
The ants would want to nest in them because they are dark and the caves are not,
which means we wouldn’t get to see them.
Congratulations Morgan, you just won a free Ultimate Ant Keeping Handbook from our shop!
In this week’s AC Question of the Week we ask:
What is unique about the entrances of stingless bee hives?
Leave your answer in the comments section and you could also win a free Ultimate Ant
Keeping Handbook from our shop!
Hope you could subscribe to the channel as we upload every Saturday at 8AM EST.
Please remember to LIKE, COMMENT, SHARE, and SUBSCRIBE if you enjoyed this video, to help
us keep making more.
It’s ant love forever!