We have a great variety of species of bees in NE Brazil including the stingless Trigona stinipes. The africanized honeybees are dangerous but these stingless bees just give a nip when they attack you. The main problem when there are a lot of them is when they get in your hair, ears and nose and buzz like mad! Well... in our front garden in Patos we have a lovely Fishtail Palm Tree which has had a nest of these bees at the top for years and we thought they were harmless and let them be. However with time the number of bees became massive, the nest got larger and larger, and the problem was that we realized the bees were sucking the sap from the tree and killing it. We therefore tried to find someone to climb up this 8 metre high tree to remove the nest but nobody could be found willing.
Today however EAB/ACEV's Bee-man, who is the pastor of our Tavares church and the leader of our new Bee Project, came to our house with his full bee garb and did the job. We were amazed at how gigantic the nest had become. I think I could compare its size with about 15 footballs in a sack together. When Robério finally toppled the nest, after a tremendous battle with the bees, the thud as it hit the ground was great. We hope that we have now got rid of this enormous amount of bees and we hope that our Fishtail Palm tree will now recover.
I have worked on lots of administrative matters today including EAB's Action Child Project.
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