BEEKEEPING
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DEVELOPMENT
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loads of comb honey in buckets or basins on their head (Figure 2) or tied to bicycles. At home the produce is either brewed or pressed. wonder whether comb honey in frames would be an advantage here? If people realise that frames for their Kenya top-bar hives mean an additional labour input instead of being more profitable, they will forget about them very soon. So why frames for top-bar hives, when problems even arise when attention has to .? be paid to issues like “bee space” |
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a number of open questions and problems remaining with the top-bar hive system. For example:
There are
technical improvements, like designs of top-bars, starter strips, position and number of hive entrances;
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the search for and testing of various local construction materials other than expensive wooden planks;
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adapted and respectful handling of bees during daylight and under appropriate climatic conditions;
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proper treatment of hive products, fearless beekeeping to be learnt and demonstrated by training and extension
personnel; @
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consistent long-term training and extension services; exchange of views and experiences at least on a regional level.
These problems can be solved when systematic trials accompany long-term training and extension programmes. The “Ruai Frame” you are promoting may well create wrong expectations, irritations, and even new problems among top-bar hive beekeepers, extension and training personnel, and last, but not least among the readers of B&D.
All of us dealing with the top-bar hive system should not question this technology in principle. It is not necessary to expose ourselves to the critics of those among framehive beekeepers who fail to understand differences of appropriateness among the various beekeeping technologies!
Figure 2. Agnes, a woman beekeeper in Kasempa District of Zambia carries her honey harvest home
A Bees for Development jaiblication
LETTER TO Bees for Development It was very nice to visit the stand
of the journal for sustainable beekeeping: Beekeeping & Development at the recent
Apimondia Congress. The log hive in their display was considered a curiosity by many visitors. But we should not forget that we also used the same type of hives in Europe. If we are serious about the environment and trying to develop a sustainable society we are forced to work together. Knowledge from traditional beekeepers that work on a small-scale is very valuable. Biological control, natural products, natural genetic selection are as important to us in my part of the world as in developing countries. If we are all going to survive on this planet, we have to co-operate with all parts of the world.
Mariet Brandwijk, Sweden
TIVE
