Travelling with us in that tour was a team from Universiti Malaysia Terengganu and they were to break off from the convoy in Bahau as it was the nearest exit back to Marang where the university is situated. They had expressed interest in visiting our farm, especially because we had on our farm a rather rare species known as Heterotrigona erythrogastra. As Bilut Valley Bee Farm totally and wholeheartedly supports scientific research, we didn't hesitate in deciding to divert to Bilut Valley to take the UMT team to our farm.
5th of May, Tuesday was to be the last day of the Southern Route of the tour, We were in Segamat, Johor that morning and had moved to Bahau, Negeri Sembilan where we visited a farm and enjoyed a sumptuous lunch prepared by our gracious host, Puan Ehwani.. We eventually left Bahau after 4pm, It is a 3-hour drive to Bilut Valley and that would mean we would have to drive non-stop to arrive while there is still some daylight left. The UMT Team weren't the least deterred.
Dusk was setting when we arrived Raub and our visitors noticed how beautiful the scenery was at that time of the day. We stopped at our halfway house in the village of Bilut Valley and performed the compulsory evening prayers before the research assistants quickly got into action. Two of them, Muhammad Firdaus and Fatin Farhana stayed back at the house as that was where we kept our Tetrigona or crystal species. They were to take specimens from the five colonies we had there including one of the extremely aggressive T.canifrons species.
The head of the team, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Shamsul Bahri Abdul Razak and another two of his assistants Roziah Ghazi and Siti Asma' headed for the farm where the most of the meliponines are cultured. It was already dark by then, but it didn't stop them from going up to the farm which has no electricity. We had the highest respect for them all - their commitment and dedication towards their jobs and achieving their objectives really had us in awe. The situation was the same amongst the participants of the tour which was headed by Tuan Abu Hassan Jalil in the last four days. We felt so honoured to be working with the individuals and teams of this calibre.
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| Pix above, Prof. Shamsul and team inspecting a hive where a colony of apis (honey bees) had invaded a stingless bee colony, and then was joined by another smaller but feisty species of stingless bees. They now co-habit in different spaces of the same log. |
Once at the farm, they headed straight for the H. erythrogastra colony. They seemed to be delighted to have finally obtained specimens and pictures of this species. And we were more than happy to oblige. Prof. Shamsul was also interested to take a look at our colony of T. melanoleuca which is not that rare but researchers are interested to look into possible variants in specimens from different locations in the country.
We found it amazing that all the three of them, Prof . Shamsul, Roziah and Asma, had felt the ambiance at the farm even in the darkness. All they could see was the silhouette of the hills in the distant horizon, when there was just a hint of daylight left that painted the sky in many different lovely hues of orange, red and blue. They knew it was a beautiful place. And they vowed to come again.
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| The UMT Research Team with the Bilut Valley Bee Farm Team From left Aiman, Firdaus, Prof. Shamsul. Marzia, Aniza, Asma, Fauziah, Fatin and Roziah. It was a long day and we were still not quite done. The UMT Team were headed back to Terengganu that night which is another 4 hours drive. But our smiles say it all, it was a wonderful occasion for both our teams,and a beginning of many good things to come, insya Allah. |
The video above was produced by none other than Prof. Dr. Shamsul Bahri himself.
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