Chennai, January 23, 2012 (Thanks to Sridhar Prasadrao for the news alert): It is very heartening to learn that the Under the Mango Tree (UTMT), a social enterprise that is actively engaged in empowering and equipping poor farmers in India to improve their livelihoods through managing locally available resources, particularly beekeeping with the indigenous Apis cerana, is celebrating 'Cerana Day' on February 5, 2012 in Mumbai at Maharashtra Nature Park, Dharavi, between 9 am and 2 pm.

Chennai, January 21, 2012: The Kerala Agricultural University (KAU) is now implementing a project approved by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research to promote and develop meliponiculture in the State as a valuable source of income to farmers. The University scientists developed appropriate technologies for honey production by rearing stingless bees (see news dated February 5, 2011 in this site).

Chennai, January 17, 2012 (Thanks to Sridhar Prasadrao, Mumbai for the news alert): Potent pesticides like the widely used neonicotinoids are highly toxic to honey bees. Recent research showed that these insecticdes can kill honey bees through intake of pollen of treated plants. Investigations by scientists at the Purdue University, Indiana, and the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, New Haven, USA, showed that the insecticides were present in waste talk exhausted from farm machinery, in the soil and in pollen of treated plants. These findings of multiple routes of pesticide exposure for honey bees kept near agricultural fields are published* online on January 3, 2012 in the journal PLoS ONE. Following is the news dated January 11, 2012 by the Purdue University News Service on the subject.

Chennai, January 11, 2012: A team of scientists from the Laboratory of Apiculture and Social Insects, University of Sussex (LASI) and the University of São Paulo discovered distinct soldier bees among workers of the stingless bee, Tetragonisca angustula that is commonly found in Brazil. The research leading to this discovery is published in a paper* in the online issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA. Following is the press release News relating to this discovery from the University of Sussex.