KUALA BERANG: The extraordinary floods that hit Hulu Terengganu did not only destroy houses, but also submerged the Universiti Malaysia Terengganu’s (UMT) Indo-Malaya Stingless Bee Repository at the Sekayu State Agricultural Park.

       The repository has the world's largest collection and is storage centre for 24 Indo-Malayan stingless bee species collected by the UMT Bee and Stingless Bee Researcher Group (SIG) in the state over the past decades.

       SIG head Prof Dr Shamsul Bahri Abd Razak said the repository housed various interesting and rare stingless bee species such as Tetragonula repeeni, Tetragonula minangkabau, Tetragonula melina, Lophotrigona canifrons and Patriotrogona pandelburyi.

       Therefore, it was the focus of researchers in and outside the country who were interested in conducting research and data collection related to the insect species.

       "It is also a loss to the state's eco-tourism sector because the repository, which is developed together with the Terengganu Agriculture Department, is the only place that has the largest collection of Indo-Malayan stingless bee species in the world," he said.

       "We estimate the physical loss in terms of equipment and so on at RM150,000, but the sad thing is that the research materials here, which took so long to collect, have all been destroyed," he told Bernama.

       According to Shamsul Bahri, most of the collection of the stingless bee kelulut species at the repository were obtained through donations from fans and collectors of the insects from all over the state.

       Apart from that, the SIG team also made a series of trips to various places to hunt for the rare species for use reference for research work, he said. - Bernama