BEEKEEPING
&
DEVELOPMENT
37
TRADITIONAL CUSTOMS of honey hunting and keeping bees in bark hives provide thousands of small-scale farmers in the Project area with considerable income from sales of honey beer (mbote).
SUSTAINABILITY Bark hive beekeeping and honey gathering are methods that cannot be developed further because of limitations regarding quality, yields and workloads. Moreover these methods are destructive: trees are usually cut for a small amount of honey, and debarked trees die. With increasing loss of woodlands through charcoal burning and agricultural use, beekeeping is becoming more difficult.
We must ask how long these traditional systems will be sustainable.
amet ®
A
beekeeper attends his bark hive, lodged in a tree Notice the
large bundle of twigs being used to produce smoke. The beekeeper has already removed the end of the hive and combs are visible inside.
STARTING AN INDUSTRY Local craftsmen are now manufacturing topbar hives, swarm boxes, protective veils, bellows smokers, queen cages and other items. Farmers were trained in beekeeping and received loans to start their own hives.
INCREASING HIVE NUMBERS Attempts to become more commercially orientated were hampered by unforeseen obstacles. It is well-known that the local bee, Apis mellifera adansonii, has a high tendency for absconding. It migrates easily to other areas where there is more food, and it does not store very large amounts of honey. Such features are not welcomed by beekeepers. Nevertheless, years of experience in Zambia have shown that with good management, colonies can be kept over many years and will regularly give good honey yields. If
a
beekeeper wants to expand numbers there
are three basic methods: @
Dig out wild colonies from holes, ant hills, or remove the bees from cavities, under roofs or from workshops.
Catching bee clusters. This method is more fruitful as the bees are normally in a more passive mood. They can be easily brushed from any place or shaken from branches into cardboard boxes. Catching the queen is an easy task. If she is initially confined, the bees will not leave. The box is put into a sack and transported to the hive site. However, there are many problems with the occupation of the hive particularly if no brood and honeycombs from other colonies are available. The absconding rate is also high.
@
Suspending empty swarm boxes 3-5m above ground in the branches of trees. This is the most successful way of getting colonies started in hives. Depending on the season and location it might take hours or months until a box becomes occupied. There is no hard or fast rule. Once the bees have entered and settled the best time to collect the boxes is dusk. The entrances are closed, the box is carried to the hive site and by next morning the bees are used to their new environment. To ensure a smooth transition, the swarm box is usually left on top of the new hive for some days before the combs, togethr~ with the bees, are transferred into the n hive.
essential to check the suspended topbar hive swarm boxes every week. If the box is collected too early and the bees have not built combs or have not developed larvae or brood, the risk of It is
subsequent absconding is again high.
It is even possible to use well-established colonies hanging from tree branches.
These methods are the least successful because the combs usually break when they are removed and often the bees abscond during the operation. If the queen has been caught and caged (which is at best difficult and at worst impossible), the
Harvesting from a bark hive on the ground
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subsequent rate of absconding is very high. Out of ten colonies caught in this way, usually about two continue to develop as a colony inside the hive.
Beekeepers of the Smallholders’ Development Project
A Bees for Development publication
