News

CAMEROON

Schools in the Buea area of South-West Province are gaining interest in beekeeping as a sustainable activity.

Bishop Rogan College has an apiary with 20 top-bar hives and acquired further five from the South-West Bee Farmers’ Association (SWEBA). The College’s annual honey harvest is a worthwhile 500 kg.

The Government High School has four active top-bar hives and obtained loan from SWEBA for a further 10 hives, two smokers and bee suit. SWEBA organised workshop for students and teachers from the school on bee farming. Participants benefited from past editions of B&D and information charts.

Afendia Fobeila Julius, President of SWEBA

PHILIPPINES

Management of Apis cerana in Guinobatan, Albay, Philippines

The Bicol Region, situated in the south-east of Luzon Island has abundant vegetation that can support honeybee populations. Among the bee plants are coconut (Cocos nucifera), coffee, (Coffea sp), kalamansi (Citrus reticulata), macahiya (Mimosa sp), papaya (Carica papaya) and rambutan (Nephelium lapaceum). There are many other wild plants growing underneath the coconut palms. The only threat to beekeeping in the region is the possibility of typhoons.

Beekeeping here usually involves the whole family. There are about 260 colonies of Apis cerana in hives. Stocks are obtained from swarms. Transferring feral colonies into hives is seldom practised.

Simple and innovative beekeeping technologies are used. Hives are constructed from used plywood and lumber with dimensions of 33 23 23 cm, The sides are either removable or hinged at the bottom. No frames are used. Instead the bees are allowed to build combs in the inner part of the top cover. When inspecting the colonies, only the two side panels are moved, to observe the outermost combs. No further inspection of the brood combs is carried out.

Another type of hive is made from cut hollow stems of anahaw (Livistonia rotundifolia) and kaong or iroc (Arenga saccharifera) with length of 33 cm. As in the box type hive, the front and the rear end are covered with removable wood. When the colonies are defensive they are smoked with dried coconut husk.

Harvesting is done by cutting the combs and selling them directly to buyers as cut-comb honey. Some buyers prefer honeycomb with pollen and brood. The average harvest is 1.5 kg per colony.

Wax moth (Galleria sp) is controlled by sweeping the bottom board one to two times week. Minor pests are wasps (Vespa sp), and moths (Acherontia sp). Apparently these Apis cerana colonies have no problems with disease.

To maintain cooler environment for the bees, beekeepers place the hives in shaded places. They also cover the hives with anahaw leaves to further reduce the temperature.

Merly Forbes, Alejandro Fajardo Jr, Cleo Cervancia and Dulce Mostoles

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

Sweet Success

Elise Figuereo lives in the arid south-west region of the Dominican Republic. Producing honey is new venture for him. With his neighbours he set up small honey production business when he found that farming alone did not make enough money to feed his family.

Oxfam provided hives and protective clothing, and now Eliseo and his partners are producing good quality honey that everyone says is delicious.

Source: Oxfam Report Summer 1997

TANZANIA

Bumper honey harvest

As result of our bumper harvest beekeepers have had to wait for payment for their honey. In December 1996 we fulfilled an order for six containers to be shipped to the United Kingdom. We had large quantities of honey left in the stores. In March this was being sold to the same buyers as industrial honey.

Locally, the market is not very big and many buyers are no longer buying honey to sell within Tanzania. Therefore we are forced to export nearly all our honey. Our honey has to be stored for long time which can mean the HMF value rises due to the high temperatures. This lowers the quality of the honey and forces us to sell it as industrial honey at a lower price.

We would welcome orders from firms interested in good, organic honey. Ideally we would like orders by May each year: this would give us time to purchase packaging material to pack and ship the honey immediately it arrives at our factory. It is in our interest to see that the honey is not spoilt, and also that the producers get a good price. We always ensure that the highest quality Tabora Natural Organic Honey is sold to our customers!

Our buyers have insisted that we gather honey without using smoke. We are keen to see that the use of smoke is discouraged so that we capture as many buyers as possible. We want to attract people to eat our honey and appreciate its superb, delicious taste.

Justin Madaha, Manager, Tabora Beekeepers’ Co-operative Society Ltd, and B&D's Correspondent in Tanzania

DANGEROUS FORAGE

“Reports presented at a meeting of scientists from around the world attending the Third Meeting of the Open-ended Working Group on Biosafety of the UN-Convention on Biological Diversity in Canada include the latest evidence of the detrimental environmental and agricultural impact of Novartis (formerly Ciba) insect resistant maize prematurely approved by the European Commission for marketing and cultivation (23 January 1997). The report calls for an urgent “moratorium for transgenic insect resistant plants” and details the evidence supporting legal action by over 30 scientific, environmental and agricultural groups. The Meeting coincided with the Global Days of Action Against Genetic Engineering.

This should alert beekeepers to the increase in such insect resistant plants being introduced with the obvious detrimental effects these will have on bees. Already we have reports of colonies of bees damaged by forage on oil seed rape with insecticide gene.

Scientists from the Scottish Crop Research Institute have shown that much more pollen escapes from large fields of genetically engineered oilseed rape than predicted from earlier experiments on smaller plots. They found that escaping pollen fertilised plants up to 2.5 km away (Timmons 1994).

Joergensen and Anderson (1994) showed how easily oilseed rape crossbred with wild relatives and therefore how easily transfer of the herbicide resistant gene could occur. Within the first season a substantial part of wild weed population could acquire the gene for herbicide tolerance (Joergensen Andersen 1994, Mikkelsen et al 1996).

Source: Albert Knight, BIBBA Newsletter

SPAIN

The cave paintings at La Cueva de la Arafia, including honey hunting scenes, are under threat and will be lost for ever unless immediate restorative work is undertaken. The Beekeepers’ Association of Burgos is collecting signatures from beekeepers around the world to encourage the preservation of these unique paintings.

Please ask your friends and colleagues to sign piece of paper headed “Please preserve the paintings at La Cueva de la Arana” and send the paper as soon as possible to: Asociacién de Apicultores Burgaleses, Spain

GHANA

African Peace Network (APNET Ltd) is an NGO in Ghana concerned with peace and development. APNET has number of sustainable beekeeping farms in villages throughout the 110 districts. The picture shows the Executive Director, Mr Alex Adu Appiah (right) shaking hands with an APNET Liaison Officer during an inspection tour of farm in the Brong Ahato Region. Looking on are other branch members.

* Please see the original journal article to see the picture

ARGENTINA

Students attending the latest CEDIA, Centro de Investigaciones Apicolas, course held in August. The participants learnt about “Quality control of honey, wax and propolis”. The photograph was sent to B&D by Dr Bianchi, Director of CEDIA.

* Please see the original journal article to see the picture