Project experiences

by Angelo Isola

Angelo Isola worked in Guinea-Bissau from January 1990 to January 1991on a beekeeping development project funded by FAO. In this article he adds his experiences to the debate on the benefits and problems of beekeeping development projects.

Guinea-Bissau is one of the poorest African countries Beekeeping and honey hunting are practised all over the country, but particularly in the Eastern Province, where there is very good natural potential Yearly honey production is estimated to be 800-1000 tonnes.

Reliable statistics are not available, but the Ministry of Commerce supplied data showing that during the 1960s and 1970s many tonnes of beeswax were exported Beeswax exports have now declined considerably this may be because of difficulties caused by strict control on commercial transactions.

Objectives

The objectives of the Project (in Pitche, Eastern Province) were to set up a honey collecting centre, establish a demonstration apiary, introduce top-bar hives, conduct experiments with frame hives. install a workshop for hive construction, train the technicians of the Beekeeping Department, and train the farmers And all within 12 months!

Every beekeeper knows that honey production is the result of two different factors the bees. who produce the honey, and the beekeeper who collects it. Generally the bees do a very good job, more often the beekeeper spoils the quality of the product due to poor techniques This happens the world over and in Guinea-Bissau as well!

Keeping in mind this “division of labour’, the Project decided to improve extraction techniques. This seemed a short-term, easy-to-reach objective By contrast the improvement of colony management in Guinea-Bissau. as in the whole of Africa, is a long-term and difficult-to-reach objective.

Marketing

No action of beekeeping development may succeed unless accompanied by positive marketing actions. The basis for any marketing action is a good quality product. The first step is to supply good quality honey which retains its properties and value without fermenting.

Improvement in product quality is particularly necessary in Guinea-Bissau where honey is extracted traditionally by pouring hot water on the combs, you cannot bottle and market honey if your product is a dirty, sugar-water solution which quickly ferments.

Activities

Activities started with the arrival of the imported beekeeping equipment A rapid survey of the Project area and visits to 40 villages showed us that the plan must be modified to suit the field conditions.

When we started traditional hives were already in position to be populated by natural swarms. We were too late to introduce top-bar hives and besides, no local beekeeper was interested in adopting a new and expensive model But most people were interested in the Project if it meant they could get a better price for their honey.

We therefore decided to first improve the quality of honey produced by traditional beekeepers to help them get a better price and to gain their confidence.

Centres

A single honey collecting centre could clearly not receive honey from the whole sector because of 1) serious transport problems 2) the management of such a big structure would be impossible (lack of trained people. etc) and 3) the premises were not available.

Our Project set up 14 village centres in order to decentralise activities and encourage Involvement. Each centre was equipped with a tropical honey extractor, a honey press, honey filters, storage tanks and small buckets The five biggest centres also had solar wax extractors.

The activities of each centre were monitored by a Project extension worker who trained one or two villagers to use the equipment, check and buy incoming honey.

Most honey was extracted by a press because the combs were too small to be put in the extractor

Letting honeycombs drip on a wire mesh gave good results the system is slow but dripping honey is pure and clean Storage tanks to leave honey to ripen were essential. Honey should be left to settle for a few days to remove the particles which are inevitably present even after a first straining

The only problems we had related to the organisation and timing of activities sometimes we had no incoming honey, the next day we were brought 400 kg So it was tricky to make the work flow easily, especially because pressing honey or letting it drip are slow techniques, which cannot cope with several hurried beekeepers. A well organised centre could extract up to 350 kg of honey a day.

Improved extracting techniques resulted in improved product quality which in turn led to increased prices for honey and beeswax. The Project organised the marketing of all the collecting centres’ honey and beeswax by signing an agreement with the most important local honey buyer.

At the end of the honey campaign. in June 1990, the 14 centres had collected a total of 25 tonnes of honey and 1.5 tonnes of beeswax. The beekeepers received 1500PG (SO 6) per kilo for extracted honey and 4000PG ($1 6) per kilo for beeswax. (Compare with 1989 prices honey 550PG ($0 2) per kilo, and traditionally extracted beeswax 1500PG (SO 6) per kilo).

25 tonnes of pure quality honey, (with no water added!), is a good result, especially considering that the Project started just a few weeks before the honey season, when many beekeepers were already engaged with other honey merchants and could not bring their production to our centre.

Importance of village centres

Very often development projects invest much of their funds in constructing premises, workshops, or buying sophisticated equipment which Is not useful. Most of these expenses are for the “prestige” of the project or for (tolerated) unofficial use.

This was true for our Project too. There was no technical reason for setting up a major collecting centre in Pitche or to build a well-equipped workshop to construct the few dozen hives needed over the year.

We were warned that we could not collect much honey because farmers would not trust us, “You know the farmers are traditionals, they are primitive, they don’t understand”.

Actually farmers are quite right not to trust Government-sponsored projects. farmers everywhere have experience of promises which are not kept, and “development” projects from whose benefits they are excluded In our Project, participation was easy because farmers felt the village centre was their “own”.

Small is beautiful

The bigger the structure Is, the more farmers feel excluded by a “development” project even if, in theory, it is for their benefit.

A village centre can be run by a farmer briefly trained in the use of an extractor and other equipment - a major centre would need several people working and more complicated administration.

Price

The Project had no revolving fund and so we were not able to buy honey in the short term and resell it over a longer period. Of course no farmer was willing to give any honey without down payment. In Guinea-Bissau beekeepers are often paid in advance for their honey: this means that the merchant can fix any price because the farmer has no contractual power. Honey is collected at the end of the dry season when farmers are running out of food supplies and so must accept any price imposed by the buyer.

There are other factors which put the farmer in a weak position concerning honey price the extreme dispersion of the producers - beekeepers each have their own different agreement with the buyer; the absolute lack of tanks for honey storage - generally the buyer supplies tanks, fermentation - apart from storage problems, beekeepers realise that they cannot keep their honey long because of likely fermentation during the rainy season.

By signing an agreement with the major local honey buyer the Project could solve, at least for the first honey campaign, the problem of marketing all the production of the centres. The buyer paid, through the Project, 1500 PG/kg which was three times the previous year’s price.

This important increase was possible because:

- the Project could supply pure honey with no water added.

- the deal was directly between the producer and the end-user, without middlemen.

- processing was concentrated in the centres and so honey collection was easier for the buyer.

Buyers supplied the tanks (reasonably clean petrol drums) for storage and transport, and most important, supplied cash and rice in down-payment. Actually most beekeepers wanted to be paid in rice (1.5 kg of rice per kilogram of honey); barter is an important feature of rural economy, moreover they had the possibility through the Project to have rice delivered to their own village. without having to go to the main weekly market.

Equipment

Wooden hives are very expensive in Guinea-Bissau When constructing wooden top-bar hives we faced two problems first of all the availability of seasoned wood, which regardless of price is almost impossible to find, second to find a trained and reliable carpenter.

A wooden hive represented a financial investment which was too high for the beekeeper: on average a wooden top-bar hive costs 30 times more than a traditional hive and will not produce 30 times more honey. No beekeepers in the world would change to different hives if they cost 30 times the price of the ones they use currently.

Tanks and buckets are a major problem. We had 300 kg drum and 25 kg buckets which rusted in a short period, mostly because in the villages it is difficult to have them rinsed and dried. Of course the buckets intended for honey are used for other purposes. Plastic buckets are a possible solution One of the major problems often underestimated for beekeeping development is the non-availability of containers for honey.

For the solar wax extractor we used plastic film because glass was too expensive. The film (also used in glass houses) works well, is unbreakable and is cheap.

At the beginning of the Project all the equipment was imported. The tropical extractor is the only piece of equipment which could not be constructed in Guinea-Bissau, because of non-availability of stainless steel By the end of the Project all other equipment was made locally.

It will take years before beekeepers observe a significant increase in production with top-bar hives. This is because nobody yet knows how to manage a colony for maximum production: even with top-bar hives farmers think of themselves more as “honey hunters” than as “beekeepers”.

Results

The Project had a good impact on local beekeepers because our activities resulted in a marked increase in honey price.

Unluckily our assistance was interrupted in January 1991 just when we were preparing the next honey campaign. Even if the life of the Project was very short and good first year results were not consolidated during a second honey season, I think our experience has shown positive aspects worth considering for other projects.

Almost all our honey was used to distil an alcoholic beverage, “cana” This was not in the Project objectives and I did not like to see a good quality foodstuff being used to produce alcohol, but in Guinea-Bissau 99% of the honey is marketed for alcohol production and the Project could not modify the entire marketing structure.

The main objectives of the Project were to improve the quality of the product, which we did, and to increase the revenues of the farmers, which we did also.

Beeswax exports from Guinea-Bissau

(Tonnes)

1961 - 8l

1962 - 27

1963 - 62

1964 - 57

1965 - 83

1966 - 64

1967 - 57

1968 - 26

1969 - 62

1970 - 21

1971 - 48

1972 - 79

1973 - 5

1975 - 32

1976 - 57

1977 - 15

1978 - 12

1979 - 0

1980 - 10

1984 - 5

1985 - 1