Priorities on R&D in beekeeping in Tropical Asia, Universiti Pertanian, Malaysia

Nicola Bradbear participated this meeting with support from BESO, the British Executive Service Overseas

This Workshop for Asian bee scientists was held in Malaysia in early August. The programme was well devised: bee scientists from Asia were encouraged participate in a form of strategic planning for future research. They endeavoured summarise the current problems ad discussed ways to address them.

Overall objectives

- To assist research and development in tropical Asia on beekeeping and pollination with indigenous bees for the rural poor.

- To balance and harmonise the development of beekeeping and pollination in tropical Asia with concerns for the environment and judicious use of appropriate indigenous species of honey bees

Results

- Agreement on priority areas for Research and Development.

- Decisions on the allocation of available IDRC funding for regional Research and Development.

- Very good links for further communication between Asian bee scientists: the network is named BEENET.

- Agreement to contribute information to a quarterly BEENET newsletter.

The Malaysian Bee Research & Development Team of the Universiti Pertanian Malaysia is led by Dr Makhdzir Mardan. Over the past 10 years the Team has developed into one of the most successful and achieving centres bee research within Asia. The Team consists of people from various disciplines providing a range of expertise, and itself provides an excellent model for researchers in other countries to emulate. The meeting was made possible with financial support from IDRC (Canada).