Dear friends

We made it to 100! Welcome to this milestone edition of Bees for Development Journal. As we go to press, here in UK there seems to be a resurgence of interest in simple, natural, low-technology beekeeping – in fact everything that we have been espousing for the past 100 editions – which means 25 years!

Bees for Development Journal provides useful information about beekeeping practised within people’s livelihoods worldwide, and we specialise in news about beekeeping in developing countries. This is where beekeeping can be particularly useful for people and crucial for maintaining honey bee populations.

We would like to emphasise that Bees for Development is not promoting any one type of hive over any other. A hive is just a container for bees to live inside. The best hive is the one that is most appropriate for your bees and for you, and depending on where you are, and what resources you have easily available to you, this may be a Langstroth hive, a topbar hive, a box pile hive, the Oscar Perone hive, a log hive, the Warré hive, or any other of the hundreds of different hives that been designed, each with their proponents arguing in their favour, and sometimes on the pages of this Journal.

We hope to inspire you by bringing glimpses of how people in different places worldwide are working to protect bees and to make livelihoods from them too. Creating sanctuaries for bees sounds like a great idea – and on page 5 you can read of a bee sanctuary established in South India. Because good, reliable recipes for making beeswax soap are not always easy to obtain – we are very pleased to bring you tested and adaptable instructions by Sara Robb. And everyone is always intrigued to know more about stingless bees and how to look after them – so do read about the fantastic new initiative doing just that in Ghana. With news of beekeepers all around the world, we hope that there is always something fresh and new for you here – please do let us know what you would like to read as we enter our second century.

One hundred not out!

"The Association of Caribbean Beekeepers' Organizations (ACBO) wishes to extend heartiest congratulations to Bees for Development, and its hard working editorial/publication team for their unswerving commitment to the publication of BfD Journal. To have published 100 issues of a quarterly journal is by any standard a major accomplishment. Caribbean beekeepers have benefited tremendously from being able to access BfD Journals, and I believe that it is fair to say that over the years, millions have been impacted, directly and indirectly, by its publication.

One hundred 'not out' is a score even Brian Lara would be extremely proud of. Having reached it he would be contemplating a double century - I am sure Bf D is as Gladstone Solomon well. Congratulations again!”

Gladstone Solomon

PHOTO © BfD

Gladstone Solomon, President of ACBO and BfDJ Correspondent in the Caribbean