IN
RODRIGUE a by Michael R Duggan, Redhill, UK and Paul Draper, Craft Aid, Rodrigues
Like many remote places in the world, the Island of Rodrigues has its quota of disabled and disadvantaged people. Fortunately, Rodrigues also has a good oceanic climate, plenty of varied bee forage and hardworking Apis mellifera honeybees. SS
partially sighted children. The Craft Aid workshops grew and with them, there were more employment
opportunities for the disabled. The long term aim was to diversify, to help pay wages, and when
they were 15 years old, to find employment for the disadvantaged children.
A plan was devised to spread information about good beekeeping practices.Craft Aid decided to start a honey department where disabled
people could use hand extractors, and filters for bottling. The department would also disseminate information to anyone on the Island. A system
was devised for the collection of supers, processing, and return of wet supers the same day. The beekeeper would be paid that day,
instead of perhaps waiting one year.
At the same time
it
was decided to set up
a model teaching apiary with 12 colonies in
It is believed that honeybees of the race
Langstroth hives, all made to the exacting standards of the Craft Aid workshops.
Apis mellifera unicolor were present here for many years before the importation of Italian Apis mellifera queens in the early 1980s.
The aim was: To teach good beekeeping practices;
This coincided with the end of a seven-year drought that had devastated the island.
To run courses, primarily for disabled
Overgrazing compounded the problems.
beekeepers or dependents who had
The bees did weil, and the number of beekeepers rose to between 150 and 180. Much honey was
disabled children; :
produced: Government sources claimed up to 30 tonnes per year. In the 1990s, beekeeping, like ali forms of agriculture, declined and the
To generate funds to pay the wages of
those employed in the honey department.
beekeepers became disheartened. Efforts to form a communal project, funded by the European Union, ran into difficulties: there was no
leadership, no transfer of information and poor management. An attempt to introduce five
Australian honeybee queens was not successful. In 1989, Craft Aid, a loca! Mauritian organisation, set up a branch in Rodrigues with Paul Draper as Director. Craft Aid began in a
small way making Christmas cards, model boats, and coconut novelties. There were many deaf or partially deaf children destined for a vegetating life at home. Craft Aid started a small school for
them and this has now expanded to also include
BESO
in
1993 recruited Michael Duggan.
He was sent not only as an experienced beekeeper, but also as an active member of REMAP a voluntary organisation of engineers
chameleons,
Death’s head hawk moths, lizards, and termites. In addition, as it is in the cyclone belt, the Island
who make one-off devices for severely disabled people, where no known commercial solutions
has most years to cope with extreme winds from November to March.For the next two years funds
are available. Michael Duggan soon grasped the
were raised and the honey workshop, store room and bottling room were built. Special hive stands
beekeepers’ problems. Harvested honey was crystallising and fermenting (in tropical countries people often believe that the beekeeper has put
with water basins for the legs (based on a design originated in Trinidad & Tobago) were constructed.
sugar in the honey). The honey would also contain debris and was poorly presented.
The apiary was in a hot site on a riverbank: a sunshade of leaves was devised. However,
Solutions were available to all these problems,
this allowed lizards to drop from the shade on to the stands. A netting sunshade was the answer.
but the Island has communication problems.
Beekeeping & Development 58
Many problems were recognised, including a list of bee predators: ants,
