Patricia Vit

• Professor
• University of the Andes

Stingless bees (Hymenoptera; Apidae; Meliponini), with a biodiversity of 605 species, harvest and transport corbicula pollen to the nest, like Apis mellifera, but process and store the pollen in cerumen pots instead of beeswax combs. Therefore, the meliponine pollen processed in the nest was named pot-pollen instead of bee bread. Pot-pollen has nut...

The chemical composition of propolis has a dual plant and animal origin, as it is in pot-honey and pot-pollen, including transformations additionally caused by associated microbes. Colonies of the highly eusocial bee tribes collect resins exuded by plants and use them as structural materials and for immune and defense strategies. Resin exudates are...

An investigation was completed to review the etymologies of 33 stingless bee genera (1806–2005), including the extinct Proplebeia, and 80 Melipona taxa (1798–2012) – 70 species with 10 subspecies for M. bicolor, M. marginata, M. quadrifasciata, and M. seminigra – from the 391 valid names for species groups recognized in the chapter Meliponini Lepel...

Beneficial molecules for bee colony nutrition and health are also nutritional and medicinal for humans consuming bee products. Stingless bee species are a source of entomological variability in the honey and pollen they produce, besides the plants they forage and the microbial associations receiving particular attention in classic microbiology, foo...

Bees transform nectar and honeydew into honey, floral pollen into bee pollen, and resins-latex-gums into propolis. Protective functions and biological activities of propolis apply for the bee nest and apitherapy. This chapter deals with the metadata on published propolis research available in Scopus, which started in 1945, and scaled-up to 7886 doc...

A colony of Tetragonisca angustula nested in a damaged 30 cm diameter porcelain Büchner funnel in a garden. This pharmaceutical hive attracted the attention of J.M.F. Camargo†, who was invited to a conference at the Faculty of Pharmacy, who then transferred the colony to a wooden hive. Six plant resin-beeswax-based materials were collected from the...

The global research on yeasts of the genus Starmerella was not mapped before. This bibliometric review comprised documents published since the creation of the genus Starmerella in 1998. Classic rankings for author, affiliation, country, and source analysis were performed for 131 bibliographic records retrieved from the Scopus core collection databa...

More than 600 species of stingless bees (Hymenoptera, Apidae, Meliponini) produce honey in cerumen pots, with greater diversity than unifloral honey studied for Apis mellifera. Exceptionally, 500 of them are Neotropical meliponines that evolved since the Late Cretaceous Period, the date of the oldest bee fossil Cretotrigona prisca. Microbes associa...

Medicinal properties of propolis across a broad spectrum of diseases are ancestral knowledge constantly evidenced while slow to reveal mechanisms of action. Stingless bee propolis used in this review originated from the following stingless bees: Brazil (Melipona fasciculata, Melipona quadrifasciata quadrifasciata, Scaptotrigona sp., Scaptotrigona a...

Ethnomedicinal uses of honey value its nutritional and medicinal properties to attain general health, diseases prevention or treatment for particular illness. Madu kelulut or stingless bee honey is produced by Meliponini species and the honey referred as superfood in Malaysia. The honey is a complete natural food product that provide safe source of...

Stingless bee honey (SBH) is the most important product from stingless bee colonies with great economic value and health benefits. Nevertheless, there is little information on the physiochemical parameters of Chinese SBH, which also limits its utilization and quality control. In the period 2019–2023, we collected 89 Chinese SBH samples produced by...

Bee propolis has been touted as a natural antimicrobial agent with the potential to replace antibiotics. Numerous reports and reviews have highlighted the functionalities and applications of the natural compound. Despite much clamor for the downstream application of propolis, there remain many grounds to cover, especially in the upstream production...

Tetragonisca angustula is the most widespread stingless bee species, from Mexico to Northern Argentina. It is called Mariola in Costa Rica. Native plant species offering food resources and nesting sites to stingless bees are included in reforestation and conservation programs. In Costa Rica there are continuous initiatives on listing flora supporti...

Cerumen is a bee product produced exclusively by stingless bees, resulting from a mixture of beeswax and plant resins. The antioxidant activity of bee products has been investigated since oxidative stress is associated with the onset and progression of several diseases that can lead to death. In this context, this study aimed to investigate the che...

Purslane is called 'Verdolaga' in Venezuela and 'Beldroega' in Brazil. It is a frequent weed of the Portulacaceae family in backyards but not widely used as Mexican quelites are. We propose to integrate it in the Venezuelan scrambled eggs known as 'peri-co', arepa, lentils, pasta, pickles, rice, battered, salad, juice, fish, soup, and strawberries....

Background. The combination of natural products like the bioactive stingless bee nest materials with conventional antibiotics offers a promising strategy to enhance antibacterial efficacy and contend with antimicrobial resistance. Objective. This study evaluated the potential synergistic effects of Tetragonisca angustula pot-pollen extract combined...

This review of analytical methods for pot-honey research is intended to provide concise references to our contributions to a 35-day post-harvest at 30 °C, in an integrated study. Diverse methods were selected from specialized literature, from the AOAC (Association of Official Analytical Chemists), and the International Honey Commission. Besides the...

The biodiversity of Ecuadorian stingless bees is almost 200 species. Traditional pot-honey harvest in Ecuador is mostly done from nests of the three genera selected here Geotrigona Moure, 1942, Melipona, Illiger, 1806 and Scaptotrigona, Moure 1943. The 20 pot-honey samples collected from cerumen pots and three ethnic honeys “abeja de tierra”, “berm...

Avocado's global acceptance has grown, resulting in expanding cultivation, agricultural development, and significant marketing efforts. Publicizing avocado also targets its by-products' nutritional and functional benefits. This is the first bibliometric analysis for avocado. It aims to provide a descriptive structure to identify collaborative patte...

The biodiversity of Ecuadorian stingless bees is almost 200 species. Traditional pot-honey harvest in Ecuador is mostly done from nests of the three genera selected here Geotrigona Moure, 1942, Melipona , Illiger, 1806 and Scaptotrigona , Moure 1943. The 20 pot-honey samples collected from cerumen pots and three ethnic honeys “abeja de tierra”, “be...

Bees are valuable pollinators of fruit trees and grasses. Honey is a medicinal food of plant and animal origin, with social impact for the wellbeing of bee keepers. The Neotropical apifauna has about 500 species of stingless bees (Meliponini). Commercial beekeeping with Apis mellifera underestimates the cultural legacy of meliponiculture, and both...

The pollen col-lected by the bees is harvested with pollen traps before it enters the hive, dehydrated and marketed as bee pollen. It is a nutritional and medicinal product, its composition varies according to the botanical origin, which is perceived by the dif-ferent colors of the pollen balls. Proximal chemical and palynological analyzes were car...

Blueberries, strawberries and raspberries are soft fruits marketed worldwide, with unique sensory, nutritional and biological properties. This bibliometric comparative analysis aims to analyse the published scientific research in order to provide a valuable and important reference for berry growers, the fruit industry, health personnel and scientis...

Pastaza is the largest and least populated province in Ecuador, with seven native indigenous nationalities. The Kichwas from the Rio Chico community live near to the capital city Puyo, are recognized for their knowledge on stingless honey bees. From the 400 species of Neotropical Meliponini that make honey in cerumen pots, almost 100 thrive in Sout...

En Ecuador la megabiodiversidad está presente también en las mieles producidas en potes de cerumen, las cuales no están incluidas en las normas técnicas de calidad del Instituto Ecuatoriano de Normalización NET INEN 1572. Las normas de miel sólo se refieren a la miel producida por la abeja comercial Apis mellifera. “Angelita” es el nombre étnico de...

The chemical composition and bioactivity indicators (flavonoids, polyphenols, and antioxidant activity) of bee pollen produced by two Meliponini bee genera (Melipona and Scaptotrigona) in Paria Grande, Amazonas state, Venezuela, were compared. Proximal analyses were performed in triplicate following standard methods. Moisture, ash, and crude fat we...

Ecuadorian stingless bees (Apidae, Meliponini) have ethnomedicinal interest because their products are used in healing. Diverse remedies consist on pot-honey alone or mixed with infusions. This set of medicinal uses were informed in El Oro province by Ecuadorian stingless bee keepers -known as meliponicultors-in Latin America: Bruises, tumors, ocul...

RationaleTetragonula carbonaria pot-honeys are highly valued as a food source and for their biological activities in Australia, and there is a growing interest to know its composition. Phenolic metabolites, which could be related to their beneficial properties, have not been studied in depth yet.Methods Mass spectrometry (MS) coupled to liquid chro...

Interest to develop new anticancer drugs and to design combination treatments with little or no secondary effects provides new scope for traditional phytochemicals in chemoprevention and therapy. Propolis is a known source of polyphenols, and flavonoids found in them have been widely studied as biochemical markers for botanical origin and in exp...

International honey standards are specified in a European Honey Directive and in the Codex Alimentarius Standard for Honey, both of which are presently under revision. In this article, present knowledge on the different quality criteria is reviewed. The standard drafts include standards and methods for the determination of the following quality fac...

A total of 16 geopropolis samples from Brazil, Bolivia and Venezuela were analysed in the present study. Samples were submitted to the standard procedure used to obtain pollen grains and additional structured elements. At least 300 pollen grains per sample were counted; five samples did not reach 300 grains. The pollen types of Brazilian samples di...

The present study aims to review palynological analysis of geopropolis and propolis obtained from stingless bees in South America. Such studies are scarce and most analyzed samples are from Brazil, with a few from Bolivia and Venezuela. High diversity in pollen types, along with plant tissue fragments, hyphae, fungal spores, and amorphous organic m...

El análisis polínico de las mieles proporciona información sobre las preferencias de las abejas y permiten determinar su origen botánico y geográfico. Por esta razón, el polen apícola por ser el segundo producto más consumido proveniente de la colmena, puede contener oligoelementos cuyas cantidades varían de una planta a otra, permitiéndole actuar...

Soursop Annona muricata L. is a tropical fruit of current interest for its medicinal properties. The compared proximal composition and antioxidant activity of the pulp, fresh and dried leaves, and seeds of soursop were compared. The highest contents of protein (14.77g/100g) and fat (25.75g/100g) were found in seeds. The pulp showed the highest mois...

Apis mellifera bees obtain propolis by adding wax and salivary secretions to resinous, gummy or balsamic materials collected from various plant sources. Its chemical composition depends on many factors (type of bee, flora accessed, environment, management, season, vegetation and geographical area of collection). In the hive, the bees use propolis t...

There is abundant information about the antioxidant activity of honey, pollen and propolis, but antioxidant activity of stingless bee nest products is less well known. In this work in vitro total antioxidant activity (TAA), flavonoid and polyphenol contents of ethanolic extracts of Tetragonisca angustula nest products were assessed. The highest TAA...

Information obtained from traditional use and scientific studies can help establish the value of honey in cancer treatment. Animal models and clinical trials with honey administered alone or in combination with other natural products or targeted therapy, are often difficult to interpret because honey contains major sugary and watery plant component...

The stingless bees are one of the most diverse, attractive, fascinating, conspicuous and useful of all the insect groups of the tropical world. This is a formidable and contentious claim but I believe it can be backed up. They are fifty times more species rich than the honey bees, the other tribe of highly eusocial bees. They are ubiquitous in the...

Honey components (sugars, aminoacids, lactic acid) may behave as humectants and also enhance humectant properties in a formulation. Active principles of functional properties in honey vary according to visited flora, type of bee and localities where honey is produced. Studies of honey in dermo-cosmetic applications are scarce. In this work we revie...

Sensory analysis uses the five human senses to evaluate products like stingless bee pot honey. The sensory characteristics of pot honey are presented and discussed, and comparisons between honeys produced by the bees in combs or in pots are considered, as well as the sensory evaluation of fermented honey. Sensory results based on descriptive techni...

A meliponiculture project in Amboró National Park, Southeast Bolivia, uses six species of stingless bees: “erereú choca” Melipona brachychaeta, “erereú barcina” Melipona grandis, “obobosí” Scaptotrigona depilis, “suro negro” Scaptotrigona polysticta, “suro choco” Scaptotrigona near to xanthotricha, and “señorita” Tetragonisca fiebrigi. The annual y...

The stingless bee Melipona favosa lives in the plains and coastal areas of Venezuela. It is a gentle bee known locally as “erica” and “maba.” This bee commonly nests in trees, walls, fence posts, and is kept in hives by traditional stingless beekeepers. Its honey can ferment inside sealed storage pots of the nest. Therefore, the sensory attribute f...

Bee pollen has been reported to show antioxidant and radical scavenging activities; contributing to anti-inflammatory and gastroprotective properties. Venezuelan honeybee pollen has been little studied, but is consumed because its properties are known from other countries reports. On the basis of these reports, water, ethanol and methanol soluble f...

Diverse species of stingless bees produce por honey in Vene-zuela,which is not included in the Venezuelan regulations of honey quality. One of these species , the Melipona favosa, lives in the Paraguaná Peninsula, where it is known as erica or maba. In order to know the honeys of M. favosa, the botanical origin was determined, their physicochemical...

Pot honey is the most abundant honey in the forest, produced by many species of stingless bees (Meliponini) of the Huottuja (Piaroa) community in Paria Grande, Venezuela. However, the commercialization of this honey is low, and false honeys, which are sold in labelled bottles, are easily found in the market. This study has investigated the ability...

Five types of pot honeys produced in Australia, Bolivia, Brazil, Mexico and Venezuela by Melipona, Scaptotrigona and Tetragonula species were described by a Spanish untrained sensory panel. The free-choice profile (FCP) method consents consumers to use their own words to describe and to quantify the sensory attributes of the product: Appearance, od...

The analysis of the phytochemicals present in stingless bee honey samples has been a difficult task due to the small amounts of samples available and to the complexity of the phytochemical composition that often combines flavonoid glycosides and aglycones. Honey samples produced in Venezuela from Melipona species were analyzed using a combination o...

Besides honey, bee pollen is the beehive product best known by the public for nutritional and medicinal purposes. Ten samples of fresh bee pollen loads were collected using pollen traps during ten months from December 2004 to October 2005 in the Páramo of Misintá, Mérida, Venezuela. They were evaluated in the present study using two techniques, one...

Honey is the most popular bee product used by man, with nutritional and medicinal purposes. Its great diversity is attributed to numerous factors (bee type, visited flora, environment, and management). The quality of honey is controlled with routine parameters (free acidity, diastase activity, reducing sugars, ash, water, hydroxymethyfurfural, and...

Honey is the most popular bee product used by man, with nutritional and medicinal purposes. Its great diversity is attributed to numerous factors (bee type, visited flora, environment, and management). The quality of honey is controlled with routine parameters (free acidity, diastase activity, reducing sugars, ash, water, hydroxymethyfurfural, and...

The entomologist, naturalist and artist João Maria Franco de Camargo was a scientist who studied stingless bees (Me li ponini) with singular interest. The enormous biodiversity of these first bees in the planet, was for him an inexhaus tible mine of inspiration, curiosity and intelectual work. Acade mic lecturer, researcher and privileged drawer. A...

Resumen. Las normas venezolanas para calidad de miel de abejas elaboradas en el año 1984 sólo se refieren a Apis mellifera L. introducida por los europeos, pero no existen estándares oficiales para la calidad de las mieles precolombinas de abejas sin aguijón (Meliponini). Se comparó la composición físico-química de mieles comerciales y de referenci...

Honeys produced by stingless bees (Meliponini) have a different composition from Apis mellifera honey. However, their standards have not been included in norms of quality for this product of the hive. In this work Venezuelan honeys produced by six species of stingless bees, were studied: Frie - seomelitta paupera (Provancher, 1888), Scaura aff. lat...

Honey produced by ten stingless bee species (Melipona crinita, M. eburnea, M. grandis, M. illota, Nannotrigona melanocera, Partamona epiphytophila, Ptilotrigona lurida, Scaptotrigona polystica, Scaura latitarsis, and Tetragonisca angustula) from Peru has been characterized according to traditional physicochemical standards (color and moisture), bio...

Stingless bee honeys were extracted from 27 nests in the West and South of Venezuela and analysed by HPLC for sugar content. The concentration and ratios of the three frequently occurring sugars, fructose, glucose and maltose, were related to the entomological origin of the samples. The fact that an unusual high maltose content was characteristic f...

Summary Hive samples from seven Venezuelan states were studied to determine the quality of honeys from the naturalized tropical honey bee Apis mellifera, submitted for a national honey competition. The physicochemical composition varied as follows: antibacterial activity as minimal inhibitory concentration for each of S. aureus and E. coli was 25.0...

Tetragonisca fiebrigi Schwarz 1938 es una abeja sin aguijón conocida como yateí en Argentina y Paraguay. Al igual que otras especies de Meliponini, esta abeja nativa produce miel en botijas, con acidez y humedad más elevadas que los requisitos en mieles de Apis mellifera L. Se compararon 16 muestras de miel de T. fiebrigi producidas en la provincia...

The essential oil isolated by hydrodistillation from the aerial parts of Hydrocotyle umbellata L. (Apiaceae) yielded 0.025% of oil which was analyzed by capillary GC-FID and GC/MS. Twenty-one constituents were characterized making up 92.1% of the oil. The major compounds were germacrene D (26.0%), β-sesquiphellandrene (17.5%) and β-bisabolene (16.5...

Tetragonisca f iebrigi Schwarz 1938 is a stingless bee named yateí in Argentina and Paraguay. As well as other Meliponini species, this native bee stores honey in pots with acidity and moisture higher than the Apis mellifera L. honey standards. Sixteen T. fiebrigi honey samples produced in the county of Misiones, Argentina, and Itapuá department, P...

Venezuelan bee pollen has not been characterized, and marketing is not regulated. Pollen is consumed for apitherapeutical purposes for its nutritional and medicinal properties. This product of the hive is the most popular after honey; therefore it is necessary to characterize and to value it to initiate a database to support the proposal of a norm...

Honey is a sweet and viscous fluid produced by bees from nectar and honeydew. It is an ancient natural medicine mainly used to treat wounds, ulcers and burns. In this study we have assessed the antibacterial activity against E. coli and S. aureus of nine Venezuelan honeys participating in the national honey contest year 2005, compared with a contro...

Hive samples from seven Venezuelan states were studied to determine the quality of honeys from the naturalized tropical honey bee Apis mellifera, submitted for a national honey competition. The physicochemical composition varied as follows: antibacterial activity as minimal inhibitory concentration for each of S. aureus and E. coli was 25.0-50.0 g/...

Honey is a sweet and viscous fluid produced by bees from nectar and honeydew. It is an ancient natural medicine mainly used to treat wounds, ulcers and burns. In this study we have assessed the antibacterial activity against E. coli and S. aureus of nine Venezuelan honeys participating in the national honey contest year 2005, compared with a contro...

Stingless bees (Tribe Meliponini) are a diverse group of highly eusocial bees distributed throughout the tropics and subtropics. Trigona carbonaria honey, from Australia, was characterized by traditional physicochemical parameters (acidity, sugars, diastase, electrical conductivity, hydroxymethylfurfural, invertase, nitrogen, and water content) and...

El polen apícola venezolano no ha sido caracterizado, y su comercialización no está normalizada. El polen es consumido con fines de apiterapia por sus propiedades nutricionales y medicinales. Este producto de la colmena es el más popular después de la miel de abejas; por eso es necesario caracterizarlo y valorizarlo para iniciar una base de datos q...

Bee pollen is the second product of the comb most consumed, after honey; however, there are no regulations for its quality control in Venezuela. In this work, fresh bee pollen collected in Cacute, Rangel County, Mérida state from Venezuela, was separated manually into fours colors. These pollen grains were observed with the microscope for its botan...

Stingless bee (Meliponini) honey is a bioresource used to treat cataracts in traditional medicine. The anti-cataract activity of twenty flavonoids was explored in an osmotic cataract model, to find a probable link between the putative anti-cataract properties of stingless bee honey eyedrops and their flavonoids. Osmotic cataracts were induced in ov...

La bioactividad de la miel de abejas ha sido aplicada en apiterapia tradicional y moderna. El origen botánico ocasiona variaciones en los principios activos y en el color de este producto, desde incoloro y blanquecino hasta marrón oscuro en la escala ámbar. Se evaluó la actividad antioxidante total (AAT) de 50 mieles enviadas al servicio de Análisi...

The bioactivity of honey has been used in traditional and modern apitherapy. The botanical origin of honey causes variations in this product's active principles and color, from almost colorless whitish to dark brown in the amber scale. The total antioxidant activity (TAA) of 50 honeys sent to the service of Chemical Analysis of the Institute of Api...

Guava (Psidium guajava L.) is a tropical fruit widely relished in the tropics, consumed fresh and processed. In this work, free acidity, pH, ash, nitrogen and water contents were measured, besides the total polyphenol content and the antioxidant capacity of the peel, the shell and the pulp of the fresh fruit and the processed guava pulp and jam. Th...