I’m writing this while on holiday in Ubud, Bali. To be honest, in the excitement I’d forgotten about this month’s article. Before leaving, I’d just started two new classes for the upcoming beekeeping season and then when I get back, I’ll be diving straight into the start of the hornet response. Fortunately, there still has not been any hornets sighted in New Zealand since the beginning of April, but the essential monitoring program continues in earnest. I’m on holiday with Sandra; we met up with her son and his lovely girlfriend here, halfway between Glasgow and Auckland. It was great for us to catch up, but I was able to slip away for a couple of bee-themed excursions into the heart of Bali.
I travelled two hours north of Ubud 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 alternate entrances and 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.
Later in the week I travelled to the west of the island with Wajan to some of his apiaries. We visited an apiary with Asian bees in the jungle, on the way in we checked some of his bait hives where he hoped to catch some swarming stingless bees, known locally as madu kele-kele. We returned to his village, and I was shown his stingless bee hives. These were smaller than a shoe box. Wooden with two compartments, one had the brood nest, a haphazard pile of round propolis cells smaller that a Rice Krispie. In the adjoining compartment were the iconic honey pot cells, also made of propolis and filled with their delicious tangy honey. Yellow-legged hornets also prey on these tiny insects, at first glance they look like little flies. These small stingless bees had, over millions of years, 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; within minutes, mummifying them. Hives in the wild have another defence; long thin entrance tubes made of propolis, making them more easily defendable.
A highlight for me was to taste the Balinese bee’s honey.
New Zealand is fortunate that we only have pure honey for sale. We don’t allow any imported honey, which could have been adulterated. This protects our biosecurity and is vital to protect the integrity of our exports - if we allowed imported honey, these honeys could then be used to adulterate our export honey, potentially damaging our international honey reputation. The unfortunate flip side to this is that we can’t taste anyone else’s honey in Aotearoa.
New Zealand has only one species of honey bee (Apis mellifera). So, all the variety of our honey is from the source of the floral nectar or honeydew. This gives us our distinctive mono-floral honeys like Mânuka and pôhutukawa. More commonly we get multi-floral honeys from a variety of plants; often from a hobbyist beekeeper’s garden, the bush, or meadows.
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 - the Western honey bee, 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 honey bee.
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 actually 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. Next month I’ll relate my hornet hunting adventures.
It is worth coming to Indonesia just for a taste of these incredible honeys. It looks like my future holiday itineraries will be tracking unusual bees and their honeys around the world. Maybe Sainfoin Mountain honey from Kyrgyzstan or Himalayan “mad” honey from Nepal, or while visiting the in-laws with their Scottish heather honey.
