News

BURKINA FASO

An initiative to develop _| beekeeping in Burkina Faso began in the early 1980s | with local, UNDP and FAO funding. Following a government request to FAO the “Intensification of 4 Beekeeping” project was launched.

Blanca Rigau, a UN Volunteer from Spain, is responsible for extension in women's groups. She spends much time travelling to introduce bee products and modern processing techniques to rural women. There are now ten women’s groups producing honey and honey wine, and processing wax into candles and soap.

Source. UNV News

ETHIOPIA

Honeybees - a morphometric study

A study has been conducted by Ayalew Kassaye to classify Ethiopian honeybees. The sample size covers 75% of the land area of Ethiopia. No samples were taken from the northern “regions due to instability in these areas.

Classification of honeybees was done by standard procedures. 41 morphometric characters per worker bee and 19 characters per drone were investigated according to Ruttner's method. Honeybees from Ethiopia were compared with the honeybees of tropical Africa, the Middle East, and with some subspecies from Europe. Five distinctly separate groups of honeybees were found, representing different ecological areas of the country. Apis mellifera litorea was found in Gambella while Apis mellifera monticola was found in the highland areas of the Bale Region. The yellow bee found in the eastern escarpment of the country resembled Apis mellifera jemenitica.

Honeybees from the western part of the country differ from the honeybee races of East Africa in many respects, and are thus proposed to be named Apis mellifera abyssinica. Lowland honeybees of Ethiopia resembled Apis mellifera adansonii but not Apis mellifera scutellata of East Africa.

Work to identify subspecies of honeybees is still going on at the Centre of Bee Research and Training at Holeta.

Source: Ethiopian Beekeeping Newsletter, Volume, No 2

NEVIS

It is now a year since fire destroyed the Nevis Beehouse. The generosity of beekeepers locally and world-wide responding to the Nevis Beehouse Appeal means that a new Beehouse is very likely in 1994, although further donations are always welcome: Nevis Beehouse Appeal, Charlestown, West Indies.

For more information on Beekeeping. The Nevis Way, see Bookshelf.

PAKISTAN

The introduction of the European honeybee has resulted in a marked increase in honey production in Pakistan. There are now more than 27,000 colonies of Apis mellifera in all the provinces and Azad Kashmir, producing over 500 tonnes of honey annually. The overall production of honey by all three local honeybee species (Apis cerana, Apis dorsata and Apis florea) and Apis mellifera is about 1000 tonnes per annum.

Although Pakistan could be self-sufficient in honey, honey is also imported from Australia, Canada, China, Dubai, Germany, The Netherlands, Singapore, the UK and the USA: 182.5 tonnes were imported in 1990/91.

Women beekeepers

PARC has made concerted efforts to train beekeepers in modern practices and to encourage beekeeping as an income-generating activity for small farmers and landless families. PARC has collaborated with the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme to set up a beekeeping unit at Gilgit. More recently a women’s beekeeping unit has started in collaboration with the Planning and Development Department, NWFP, and the International Labour Organisation. PARC serves as a resource centre for training and extension activities and has established an active unit at Timergarah, Dir, from where the first women’s beekeeping NGO in Pakistan operates. The lady beekeepers in Dir harvested more than 500 kg of honey during May and June 1993 It is sold at Timergarah after processing and packing under PARC supervision. Two further centres are being set up at Ouch and Sadbar Clay. These centres will have 60 women trainers for further assistance in the remote areas of Malakand. PARC is thus providing technical assistance and playing pivotal rote to develop beekeeping as a cottage industry for rural communities.

Source: Nasreen Muzaffar, Director of the National Agricultural Research Centre

UGANDA

The Uganda Beekeepers’ Association held their second Annual Beekeeping Workshop in September 1993 in Kampala. The theme for the Workshop was product development and export marketing for honey and beeswax. The Minister of Agriculture, Mrs Victoria Sekitoleko, officiated at the opening ceremony. She is great supporter of beekeeping in Uganda.

Source: Geraldine Nsubuga

VENEZUELA

Revista del munapih

A new journal in Spanish for Venezuelan beekeepers.

It contains original articles and translations of relevant articles which have appeared elsewhere.

Coordinacién Técnica Mérida, Corporacién de Los Andes, Venezuela.

Source: Patricia Vit Olivier

VIETNAM

Beekeeping Research And Development Centre

The National Bee Research Centre was established in Hanoi ten years ago and in 1992 the former Technical Department of the Central Honey Bee Agency was incorporated to form the National Bee Research and Development Centre.

The Centre receives government funding for applied research and extension programmes. Activities include research into Apis cerana, Apis dorsata and Apis mellifera, honeybee management and training for beginners, extension workers and more advanced beekeepers. Topical courses on sacbrood control! and queen rearing are also organised.

BRDC wants to co-operate with other research institutes and training centres.

Contact BRDC Lang Trung Street, Hanoi, Vietnam

OBITUARY

Mr Tran Duc Ha passed away on January 1994

As Director of the National Bee Research Centre in Vietnam since 1984 Mr Tran Duc Ha was the vital force in establishing contacts towards improving beekeeping in Vietnam. His efforts resulted in the National Research and Development Centre described above.

In his work he showed a great awareness of, and actively promoted the unique traditions and the diversity of bees and beekeeping in Vietnam. Despite the difficulties, he manoeuvred the Bee Research Centre into an organisation with international activities. Within Vietnam he actively organised local training and extension programmes with the Asian bee Apis cerana.

The speed and the enthusiasm with which he mastered the English language is remarkable example of his spirit; it was appreciated by the many international researchers he met and opened his field of contacts, and also helped other Vietnamese bee researchers.

From its start five years ago he was the Vietnamese delegate to the Asian Apicultural Association (AAA), and has been a regular contributor to his journal. Recently at the Apimondia Congress in Beijing he received bronze medal award for an instructional video production on Vietnam's Apis cerana beekeeping, and was pictured in Beekeeping Development 29.

Mr Ha strongly wished to greet his friends in beekeeping, at home and abroad, to thank them for their contacts, to encourage them and to wish them good success.

Leaving his wife, his two children and many, many friends he age of 47.

Vincent Mulder