Dear friends

This edition of Bees for development Journal brings an abundance of good news about successful, profitable beekeeping with healthy bees, underway world-wide.

First off, Dr Sara Robb describes how to make an effective honey cerate that helps wounds to heal, and helps beekeepers to sell their produce more profitably.

Dr Wolfgang Ritter describes some of the reasons why races of honey bees in tropical countries seem to enjoy better health than those in temperate zones where they tend to be managed more intensively.

All experienced beekeepers will tell of the therapeutic aspects of spending time with bees, and Heide Hermann and Gareth John continue their story of assisting prisoners by means of beekeeping.

Next the operations manager of Forest Fruits honey company in Zambia describes how beekeeping in North West Zambia supports 6,000 families –harvesting tonnes of top-quality honey and beeswax destined for export to the EU with, as EU laws and buyers demand, every drop traceable back to the beekeeper who harvested it. Find out how this is achieved on page 19.

Next, Dickson, who runs TUNADO, the national beekeeping organisation in Uganda, organised an innovative Best Apiary Enterprise Award. He tells how the winners were not the anticipated prominent exponents, but rather lesser known beekeepers, discovered to be doing top quality work in their own apiaries. This fresh idea is a good way for raising awareness and celebrating the work being quietly continued in out of the way corners by so many bees and beekeepers.

We have our own good news too: in February we organised Bee Breakfast and Bee Soiree events in Westminster Palace – home to the UK Houses of Parliament. It was a wonderful opportunity to inform parliamentarians about the great value of bees and beekeeping – see our blog for more details.

If you have good beekeeping news to share, then do let us know!

Nicola Bradbear Director, Bees for development

Westminster Palace and the tower of Big Ben

Photo: Adrian Pingstone / commons.wikimedia.org