Living hive supports for bee hives in the tropics

by Trevor Chandler*, Landscope Consulting Corporation, Canada.

A challenge to all beekeepers in the tropics is to find suitable supports for beehives. Traditional hives in many tropical areas are hung in trees and lowered down only for harvesting. As beekeeping is modernized, hive densities increase and intensive management requires more frequent hive inspections. A good hive support needs to:

1. be high enough to keep the hive above the weeds and ground dwelling pests

2. be low enough to allow hive inspection and harvesting without climbing trees

3. be strong enough to hold a hive full of honey in level a position

4. be resistant to termites and rot

5. be inexpensive and easy to obtain

6. be able to form a barrier to crawling bee pests such as ants when necessary.

In my years of working with African bees and beekeepers, I have seen many clever designs, but no perfect ones. Recently while working in Uganda, however, I saw some excellent examples of traditional beekeepers using their considerable knowledge of the resources in their environments to develop effective, inexpensive and permanent hive supports for both traditional and top-bar type hives. They were using living posts as hive supports.

Living hive supports are an example of agroforestry and apiculture coming together. Agroforestry refers to land use systems and practises in which woody perennials are deliberately grown on the same land management unit as crops or animals. The multiple use of trees is important in agroforestry. Trees are valuable to beekeepers not only because their flowers produce nectar, but trees also provide shade for the hives, materials to construct hives, living fences to protect hives from large animals and living hive supports to hold hives off the ground.

In Uganda, at least two of the species of trees used for living fences are used for living hive supports:

1. Ficus natalensis, the bark cloth fig tree, grows well throughout the moist highland areas of East Africa. It is used for living fences because it will grow from a large cutting or stake inserted into the ground at the beginning of the rain season. It is also used as a shade tree in coffee plantations and grazing areas. Its leaves make an excellent soil building mulch and, as its common name implies, its bark is used to make cloth.

2. Erythrina abyssinica, one of over 110 species of coral trees in the world, is a member of the legume family well known for its ability to improve soils by fixing atmospheric nitrogen. Large sections of stem take root readily and, being thorny, it is commonly used as a living fence post. It is an excellent shade tree and a very attractive red flowered ornamental. Its leaves are fed to animals.

Both these trees are used in two ways as living hive supports:

1. Two large stems (10cm or more in diameter) with a suitable Y shape are cut and placed in the ground about 0.5 to 1 metre apart so that the crotches are about 1 metre above the ground. Round traditional hives or top-bar hives can be placed firmly in the Y.

2. Two large stems (10cm or more in diameter) are placed in the ground about 2m apart to root. When firmly established, top-bar hives are suspended between the living posts by means of wires. This method is necessary where ants must be prevented from attacking the hives. In a carefully designed apiary, one living post may serve to suspend several hives in different directions.

In both systems, the living supports grow small branches and leaves which serve to shade the hives from the sun. These branches are cut off once or twice a year to prevent them from growing too big. The cut material may be fed to animals or used as garden mulch. The apiaries are often fenced using the same species to protect them from large animals.

Trees of the genus Ficus and Erythcnrina are found in many tropical parts of the world and both are traditionally used as living fences. They could be readily adopted as living hive supports, as could any other suitable species with the same properties. I would like to hear from anyone who knows of other species being used in this way or who can offer improvements on the technology.

* Trevor Chandler is a consultant specialising in appropriate, environmentally based land and resource use. Presently based in Canada, where he also teaches ecology, he is widely experienced in apiculture and agroforestry in the tropics.