News

ESPECIALISATION EN APICULTURA TROPICAL (SPECIALISATION IN TROPICAL APICULTURE)

At Merida in Mexico, the University of Yucatan is planning new 10-month postgraduate course in tropical apiculture. The course will start in September 1992. The course is primarily to train teachers of beekeeping and will be conducted in spanish.

For further details: Departamento de Apicultura, Facultad de Medicina Veterinaria Zootecnica (FMVZ), Universidad Autonoma de Yucatan, Mexico.

BEE DISEASE UPDATE

During 1992 we plan to update the previously published World distribution of major honey bee diseases and pests. Please let us know of any new data positively identifying presence, or indicationg the absence of the following honey bee diesaeses and pests:

Amoeba, American fouldbrood, bee louse, chalk brood, European foulbrood, sacbrood, Tropilaelaps clareae, Varroa jacobsoni.

Send to IBRA, Cardiff.

BERMUDA

A bee hive turned out to be one of the most popular exhibits in the New Invertebrate House at the Bermuda Aquarium, Museum and Zoo. Maybe “popular” is not the right word. The hive is located near the entrance, but behind corner so that visitors come upon it rather abruptly, finding themselves face-to-face with thousands of stinged insects. I have watched many fearless fellow recoil caught between the double horror of being stung to death and looking like a coward until he realises that the insects are behind thick glass, and he then proceeds with defiant valour.

We, the caretakers of these formidable creatures (the bees, not the visitors) have prided ourselves on the ease with which this exhibit runs itself. From the day we put the swarm in its new home, the bees were flying in and out through hole in the wall, carrying back nectar and pollen. They gradually spread over the five frames we gave them, the queen was busily laying eggs and the growing number of her subjects even drove out the bees’ arch-enemies wax moths and cockroaches which tried to gain a cosy foothold in the midst of plenty. So much was there of bees and honey that as is customary for beekeepers - I proceeded to harvest what I considered surplus, taking two of the three honey-laden combs, in an effort to prevent the bee population from overflowing its narrow confines.

But then disaster struck catching me totally by surprise. One morning I was alerted to the fact that dead bees had started to accumulate at an increasing rate and I could only confirm bee inspector Kevin Monkman’s diagnosis the colony had run out of food reserves and was starving to death. We quickly started feeding sugar syrup, then opened the hive to clear away most of the dead bees, closed it again, and hoped for recovery, which did not take long thank God. Within hours the bees, which before had been cowering lethargically on the empty comb, awoke to buzzing life, ecstatically dancing to spread the good news. Undertaker bees started to lug corpses out of the hive, collectors brought in and stored syrup, bystanders fanned with their wings to thicken it, and cells were readied to receive new brood. I almost cheered when saw the queen finally deign to lay an egg again.

But the most revealing step the bees took, to me, was that at the height of famine they began to rip open cells in which their pupae were developing. I do not know whether they were actually feeding on their own brood, but whatever they did killed the offspring, and the net effect was that the starving hive was prevented from growing even larger. For the first time I grasped the meaning of the time lag in growth those predictions that say that even if the world’s population stopped growing right now, resource use would still continue to increase for many decades. This is because a child, no matter how demanding he may seem at times, requires only fraction of the food, fuel and space of an adult. A fast-growing population, therefore, which is made up of more children than adults, is time bomb that explodes when the combined needs of adolescents have grown to the point where they run into resource limitations such as food or fuel shortage.

Wolfgang Sterrer, Natural History Museum Source: Monthly Bulletin, Department of Agriculture August 1991.

EGYPT

An Arabic language review of scientific papers concerned with the parasitic mite Varroa jacobsoni has been prepared. The life cycle, diagnosis and control of the mite are discussed, and a list of 154 references provided. Prepared by Professor Mustafa Hussein, Plant Protection Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Assiut University, Assiut, Egypt.

HAWAII

The Nitrogen Fixing Tree Association is a worldwide network of associates working together on nitrogen fixing trees These valuable, multipurpose trees provide forage, fuelwood and timber, and are widely used for reforestation and soil and water conservation. The goal of the Association is to get information and technical assistance to people in developing countries in an affordable and useful manner.

More information from NFTA, PO Box 680, Waimanalo, Hawaii, 96795, USA.

THAILAND

A new species of mite has been described and named Euvarroa wongsiri. It was collected from Apis adreniformis in Uthai Thani, Chiengrai, Thailand, and resembles Euvarroa sinhai, a mite found on Apis florea in south east Asia.

Source: International Journal of Acarology, Volume 17, No 4. In press.

URUGUAY

The InterAmerican Development Bank (IDB) has approved $500,000 from the Fund for Special Operations for small-scale beekeepers. The project will be carried out by the Centro Cooperativista Uruguayo, a private non-profit organisation that promotes co-operatives It will provide financing and technical assistance to some 300 low-income beekeepers in the eastern and southern coastal regions Uruguay.

The project will provide credits to purchase beekeeping equipment and queen bees for 200 new and 100 already established beekeepers who are members of farm co-operatives and rural development groups. Two-thirds of the beneficiaries will be women, with the remainder young people.

The project will also provide training and technical assistance, including plan for locating groups of beekeepers to maximise their use of natural resources.

In addition to the loan, the Bank approved a technical co-operation grant of $120,000 to strengthen the organisation and provide additional technical assistance.

The IDB, July-August 1991.

VENEZUELA

Varroa jacobsoni, the mite parasitic on honey bees has een detected in Portuguesa and Barinas, two of the most important states for beekeeping. Colonies are being treated with the acaricides OMITE 6-F and Asuntol.

Source: Professor Rafael Thimann.

IRAN

Khuzestan Province is located in south-west Iran. Khuzestan has a sub-tropical climate, ranging from 1°C on the coldest days of winter to maximum temperatures of 51°C in high summer There are plenty of water resources nearby and agriculture has expanded.

Each November large numbers of beekeepers migrate their bees from north- west and central parts of Iran to this Province. Most return home in mid-May although some colonies are left until the end of June to forage on clover.

In late April the temperature begins to rise and colonies must be kept in the shade.

Some beekeepers with only a few colonies maintain them in Khuzestan Province all summer During this time they help bees to regulate colony temperature by placing the hives in absolute shade with plenty of cold water flowing near the colonies, and with small jars of cold water placed inside each bee hive.

M T Sadeghi.