The use of puffballs Langermannia wahlbergi as bee repellents

by L O N Mollel, Njiro Beekeeping Research Centre, Tanzania.

Summary

Traditional beekeepers in Northern Tanzania use puffballs Langermannia wahlbergi to drive bees away from honey chambers during harvesting. This practice kills both brood and adult bees due to over smoking. However field experiments conducted at Arusha, Magugu, West Kilimanjaro and Tabora have shown that it is quite safe to use small amounts of puffballs (0.5-2.3)g to quieten bees.

Introduction

Puffballs are large fungi of the class Basidiomycete that usually grow along river valleys and on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro and Meru. They vary in size and at maturity they can measure up to 38cm in diameter. Like other fungi of their class, they reproduce by spores. These puffballs are not known to be edible, however they are used as bee repellents by traditional beekeepers of Meru (Chandler 1974) and Kilimanjaro. Wood (1983) suggests that the anaesthetizing agent from the puffball may be hydrogen sulphide.

In Tanzania the use of puffballs by traditional beekeepers often results in indiscriminate death of brood and adult bees (Ntenga 1974). Consequently, beekeeping extension officers have made efforts to stop their use as bee repellents. However, this move has not been successful because puffballs and smoke are the only known repellents available to traditional beekeepers; puffballs being preferred for aggressive bees Apis mellifera scutellata and smoke for calm colonies of Apis mellifera monticola usually found at high altitudes. Since the use of puffballs persists in northern Tanzania it was decided to investigate in the field the critical dose of puffballs which pacifies bees and allows safe honey harvesting without resulting in the mortality of brood and adult bees. In this exercise, A.m. scutellata was used because of its highly developed defensive behaviour during honey harvesting.

Material used and method

Fifteen different weights of puffballs ranging from 0.5g-3.3g were ignited and placed on top of the frames of the supers (Tanzania Commercial hives) ready for harvesting, in order to drive bees from the super into the brood chamber. For each dose ten different colonies were used giving a total of 150 colonies. During the experiment it was found necessary to place an empty box with a top cover on the super in order to prevent the puffball from being blown away by wind and ensure diffusion of the puffball fumes into the hive. A few puffs of smoke from burning green leaves or rags were applied at hive entrances in order to help “disorganize” the bees (Johansson 1978), and to confine them to the brood chamber. For convenience, all treatments were carried out during the morning. Random samples of 50 bees were caged for 6 hours and observed for vomiting, purging, and death. Puffballs used in this experiment were obtained from the locality.

Results and discussion

The graph shows the response of bees to different weights of puffballs used. Low weights 0.5-0.8g had little effect upon bees and in fact it was necessary to use additional smoke from grass or rags to keep the bees under control. The mid range 1.1-2.3g of puffballs caused 5% of bees to vomit and purge, however the returned to normal health within 30 minutes. It was observed that the application of puffballs within the middle ranges of 1.1-2.3g made the bees less mobile and at times it was possible to handle them without the use of protectives. It was also observed that if the amount of puffball exceeded 2.3g, this caused many bees to vomit and purge and their recovery was longer than in the 1.1-2.3g range. Higher doses exceeding 3.0g caused excessive vomiting and purging and sometimes resulted in death. From these preliminary observations, it appears that puffballs weighing between 1.1-2.3g are suitable for pacifying bees. Under field conditions, for most aggressive colonies, puffballs of up to 2.3g are required.

Traditional beekeepers should therefore use small puffballs (weighing between 1.1-2.3g) for their operation to cause minimum harm to the bee colonies. More work needs to be done in this field in order to establish L. wahlbergi natural bee repellent in the tropics.

* Please see the original journal article for Figure A: Weight of puffball versus % of bees observed vomiting and purging

References

1. CHANDLER,M T (1974) Traditional beekeeping among the Wameru people of northern Tanzania. Unpublished

2. JOHANSSON, T S K and M P (1978) Some important operations in bee management IBRA, London

3. NTENGA, G (1974) A synoptic review of the beekeeping industry. Unpublished

4. WOOD, W F (1983) Anaesthesia of honeybees by smoke from the pyrolysis of puffballs and keratin. Journal of Apicultural Research 22(2): 107- 110

Acknowledgements

Thanks to K N Hirji and C L Mollel for their useful advice in preparing this manuscript and to the Principal of Tabora Beekeeping Training Institute for financial help. I would also like to thank the Director of Beekeeping and all my colleagues at Njiro Beekeeping Research Centre for their encouragement and support. Lastly I would like to thank Mrs Hansy for typing the manuscript.