so here's what i've found.... In my studies, it seems that you cannot create the original culture of EM without a TON of inconvenience. HOWEVER, you CAN multiply and expand your EM culture so that you're only using 30mL at a time instead of 300mL or even the entire 1L bottle. Therefore, your initial $20 investment can go a LONG way.... I purchased the 1L bottle and since then have made 2 batches of "activated" EM, from which I have made a batch of bokashi from 20lbs of rice bran, poured some into the bottom of my outdoor trash can to help cut down on the stench (which works AMAZINGLY, by the way) and fertilized my garden and flowering plants 3x already. All that from just 60mL of the original bottle. Not even 1/10. I've made 2 batches of bokashi "pickle" from kitchen scraps and it looks like the first batch is almost completely broken down in the soil. I did a test and buried it in some super compacted clay (took me over an hour with a mattock to dig a 16" deep by 16" long trench) to see if it would break down and help loosen the soil. Covered it with a tarp and now, about 3 weeks later, things are looking really good. I took a shovel to the area yesterday and was able to turn up the soil in the are quite easily (having said that, I only had to dig in about 4 or 5" before I hit the bokashi compost). Anyhow, i'm very happy with how sparingly you can use the original EM culture and with how much you can get out of it. Basically, 1L of EM-1 will make 22L of activated EM to be used for whatever. If you plan on only using it for bokashi, I can guarantee you that you will not go through the entire bottle before it expires unless you're composting for an entire business or school or restaraunt or something. Bottom line, I think the $20 bottle is well worth the money.

ADDING: There is a book! http://schoolsforchiapas.org/store/books/abeja-nativa-melipona-stingless-beekeeping-book/ ====================== The technical term is "Meliponiculture" ... using that in Google search will bring up more technical information. I think CINAT wuold be the place to start. Raising bees is what they teach. http://www.cinat.una.ac.cr/ "El CINAT-UNA es un instituto especializado en el estudio de las abejas tropicales, que mediante la investigación, docencia, extensión y prestación de servicios, desde una perspectiva interdisciplinaria, promueve el desarrollo de una apicultura y meliponicultura sostenible en Costa Rica y Centroamérica." ============== I'd start with the Mexican Department of Agriculture's website or a local university that has an agriculture department. Ask them for help. http://www.stri.si.edu/sites/publications/PDFs/Roubik_Melipona.pdf (See the contact information for the authors on the last page. They are in Quintana Roo and the paper claims there are publications telling how to manage the Melipona bees.) http://www.imkerei.com/articles/us/fert/nicaragua.htm (describes how one woman collects wild swarms) http://web.catie.ac.cr/informacion/RAFA/rev31/pag50-55.pdf This is in Spanish, but it looked helpful. The sources in it might also give you information http://eco.ib.usp.br/beelab/pdfs/CORTOPASSI-LAURINO et al 2006_Global meliponiculture.pdf Brazilian research, in English http://www.inbioparque.com/en/our-attractions/our-animals.htm If you write to them, they would tell you how they keep their bees ... the pictures show a hollow log hanging under a small roof. =========== Increasing the number of hives you have might be as easy as making more hollow logs for them, or something that looks like a hollow log, such as a plain wooden box, and hanging it near an existing hive so when they swarm they move to the new hive. This post was edited by lazygardens on Fri, Apr 25, 14 at 7:29

Short hand version In detail ? Lighting : T-6 CFL's that I use with a racking stsyem (Mentioned plant seen in pic had been under mentioned lighting) sence a random day I cant recall exactly what day in October 2013and same plant had been unde the racked lighting sence. At APX 7 AM today I moved said mentioned plant from under mentioned lighting to a window sill location that provides 70 % full sun Window lighting provides 70 % of full sun during the hours menioned from 7 AM to noon My avalabilaty of outside Full sun : Imagine a baseball dimond where your standing on a pictures mound only there is no garss or no walls ( known to me as 100% full sun.) mentioned window whre i placed the plant in pic gets 70 % of that same amount of full sun. As you can imagine it also gets rather hot while sitting in a 3 inch pot under mentioned full sun here The inside lighting is kind of simple for someone who understands inside lighting I'm asking about out side heat and sun limits that concerns the same plant AKA That thing known to many on the forum as transitioning. Do you understand the importance regarding inside lighting to outside sun trasitions ? In English: Please If you dont understand the question and can only say re peat the question as a viable responce to a plant you dont know anything about , just leave the question for someone else who does .

I did, Rina. I had kept it in the nursery pot in came in with for the first two years and repotted it last autumn into a deeper pot. The roots turned out to be more extensive than I thought. So in it went into pumice with about a couple of tablespoons of soil. Then I sifted out the biggest chunks of pumice and used that as topdressing up to about 3 centimeters of the stock. It looks like this now:I still think I'll end up with a pot 12 feet tall in a few decades. Pagan