BEEKEEPING
AND DEVELOPMENT
“PARTICIPATORY” DEVELOPMENT
NEWS
BURKINA FASO
An FAO-UNDP beekeeping development project has been underway in Burkina Faso since 1985. The project is promoting the use of top-bar hives with sloping sides and containing 24 top-bars. These hives are made either from timber or woven from straw and covered with cow-dung. During the course of the project the number of beekeepers has risen from 375 in 1986 to 2250 in 1989. Around 700 hives have been built so far. The project has also provided a processing plant with modern equipment.
Source: article by Blanca Rigau and Enric Campi, United Nations Volunteers, Vida Apicola 44 (1990).
CHINA
What the government department specified
A Chinese doctor has developed an ointment for the treatment of burns. Known as Moist Burn Ointment (MBO), it is claimed to reduce pain on contact, lessen the need for narcotics and reduce healing time. The doctor who developed the medication, Dr Xu Rong Xiang comes from a family of herbal-medicine specialists, and will not reveal the ointment’s formula until he receives a US Patent, saying only that it contains honey, sesame oil and other herbal ingredients.
Dr Xu flew to the US to present his findings at major burns centres in New York, Boston and Bethesdaa. The reception was not as warm as he might have hoped. Said Dr Cleon Goodwin, director of the respected New York Hospital Burns Centre: “Dozens of magic potions have been put forward in the past 30 years. Not one has panned out. So naturally we are
sceptical’. The design after review by an advisory committee
The MBO method is disarmingly simple. Doctors spread a thin layer of the ointment over the wounded area and keep the skin completely covered until it heals. So far, the treatment has been used on 50,000 burn patients in China and on several hundred elsewhere. Source: Time, December 1990.
ECUADOR The final compromise design agreed
In the province of Chimborazo, the Autonomous Beekeeping Association of Cacha APICA, has started a teaching and training programme for various Indian communities. The aim of the programme is to strengthen the position of beekeeping among the rural poor.
Together with the promotion of fruit farming and the recovery of slope lands by the construction of terraces, beekeeping has been integrated with the aim of creating more diverse range of activities that increase income, make good use of natural resources and improve the family diet. a
In this programme, the non-governmental development organisation Fondo Ecuatoriano Populorum Progressio is providing technical and financial counselling, teaching and training, and arranging loans to small enterprises by peasants.
Source: Javier Llaxacondor, Co-ordinator,
APICA.
HONDURAS Beekeepers tune in to the Marimba! >
ae What the people really wanted
EIGHT
Marimba hives (similar to Kenya top-bar hives) are catching on among beekeepers in Honduras. Peace Corps Volunteers recently
completed a year-long study to test the acceptability of the top-bar hive in Honduras. Called Marimba hives because of their resemblance to that popular musical instrument, 50 of these hives were distributed to extensionists in ten different sites. They used these hives according to their own extension style: setting them either in model apiaries or in those of other beekeepers, and using them in exhibitions, courses and demonstrations. After working with the hives for a year, the extensionists were in agreement that the hive has a place in the Honduran beekeeping industry and should be promoted further. The hive is particularly appropriate as a development tool because it is easy to build from available scrap materials, so that even the poorest can keep bees. The more expensive Langstroth equipment (one hive body with top, bottom and frames costs twice as much as a top-bar hive) excludes these people from the industry. Beekeepers at this level were very receptive to the Marimba. The study also shows that beekeepers across the economic spectrum are interested in the hive. In areas where beekeeping with the Langstroth system has long tradition, the Marimba was promoted as a wax producer. Before the arrival of the Africanized bee, beekeepers using Langstroth equipment depended on backyard beekeepers with rustic hives and honey hunters for a supply of beeswax for foundation. The defensiveness of the Africanized bee chased most of those people out of the industry and left Langstroth users with a severe shortage of wax and high priced foundation. Marimba hives are now showing up in apiaries alongside Langstroth as some beekeepers plan to produce wax for their own use. At least one producer is planning to mount a larger Marimba operation to market wax to other beekeepers.
After the first year, nine apiaries in various parts of the country contain at least one Marimba hive, some have as many as four. Most of these were built by beekeepers or local craftsmen. Additionally, the promotion of the hive at the national agriculture school has led to the establishment of a 25-hive Marimba apiary. All students at the school receive courses in beekeeping, which now include work with the Marimba hive. Many of these students go on to be agriculture extensionists in Honduras. But even without formal extension, the Marimba is catching on. One extensionist in the programme reported that beekeepers in his area have begun teaching each other how to build and manage the Marimba hive. Monica Grabowska
