Craft aid in Rodrigues - Bees and Disabled people

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.

It is believed that honeybees of the race Apis mellifera unicolor were present here for many years before the importation of Italian Apis mellifera queens in the early 1980s. This coincided with the end of a seven-year drought that had devastated the island. Overgrazing compounded the problems.

The bees did well, and the number of beekeepers rose to between 150 and 180. Much honey was produced: Government sources claimed up to 30 tonnes per year. In the 1990s, beekeeping, like ali forms of agriculture, declined and the 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 local 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 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.

In 1992, the British High Commission made a request to BESO (British Executive Service Overseas) to assist with a project to help those disabled people who had no hope of a job, with the production of Rodriguan honey.

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 who make one-off devices for severely disabled people, where no known commercial solutions are available. Michael Duggan soon grasped the beekeepers’ problems. Harvested honey was crystallising and fermenting (in tropical countries people often believe that the beekeeper has put sugar in the honey). The honey would also contain debris and was poorly presented. Solutions were available to all these problems, but the Island has communication problems.

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 Langstroth hives, all made to the exacting standards of the Craft Aid workshops. The aim was:

- To teach good beekeeping practices;

- To run courses, primarily for disabled beekeepers or dependents who had disabled children;

-To generate funds to pay the wages of those employed in the honey department.

In 1997, a local beekeeper was persuaded to raise five nuclei colonies. These were transferred to the Craft Aid apiary.

A young beekeeper (with one hand) had received training and twelve colonies were raised in 1998. Worthwhile income ensued because it is possible to have four honey harvests each season. Traditional beekeepers in Rodrigues have just one box per colony and pollen and larvae are often extracted or squeezed along with the honey. The Craft Aid apiary uses queen excluders, each hive has 2-3 supers, 1% brood boxes and the extracted honey has a moisture content of less than 20%.

The beekeeper has an assistant who is also disabled but can do work like filling water basins and painting. A supervisor has been trained and 26 week courses have been run, not only for disabled students, but for outsiders as well.

At the end of each course students are provided with a five frame nucleus and a laying queen if they have prepared a site at their home with a metal stand, water basin and cattle fence. The bees in the nucleus colony rapidly expand into a five-frame nucleus ‘super’. In a couple of weeks the bees may be transferred to a Langstroth hive. The new beekeeper hands back the nucleus hive and is provided with a loan to buy excluders and supers as required. The new beekeeper pays the loan back in reasonable instalments, from the revenue earned from the sale of honey. This gives the realisation that money is being earned. The Craft Aid honey department processes all the honey produced to the accepted standards of clarity, moisture, labelling and bottling. Craft Aid has no difficulty in selling this honey. The beekeepers are paid and Craft Aid covers expenses. More part-time disabled workers are employed at peak times.

The response by the Island’s traditional beekeepers has been disappointing. They still use rum bottles as honey containers and are not too fussy about cleanliness. Honey is over-heated to eliminate crystallisation and is transported in old plastic drums. The beekeepers do not test for humidity with a refractometer.

More people are seeing the young disabled beekeepers producing first class honey and obtaining high awards at the UK National Honey Show.

One of the essentials is the supply of good foundation. Craft Aid has developed this and many beekeepers are buying it, sometimes cutting the sheets to use as starters. Wax production, foundation and candle making are also learnt and all help the funds.

About 45 other students have attended the courses and a high percentage has taken up the challenge to start beekeeping. The Craft Aid workers benefited in financial terms as these ‘outsiders’ paid cash for the basic equipment, site preparations and five-frame nuclei. To service this, a good supply of young, mated queens was required. By good fortune, the UN 1% to Development Fund made a donation in 1998 to enable the mode! apiary to be extended along the riverbank. Five new stands with water basins were built and fenced for protection from goats and humans. The stands now hold five mother colonies from which good queens are being produced by the temporary removal of a queen from a mother colony. The entire project has so far proved successful. It encourages a high standard of beekeeping and better production of good quality honey.

The project also encourages disadvantaged families, often in desperate situations, but above all, it produces income. It has been proved that a young beekeeper can earn the equivalent of two months’ wages with the honey produced in the first year.

Two big unknowns remain. Firstly, what happens when the next cyclone hits the Island? The Craft Aid system includes methods for lashing down the hives, but what about the following season when all the trees have been damaged? Secondly, Rodrigues bees appear to be free of bee diseases, with no signs of Varroa. If disease is introduced it will be devastating for the island and its economy.

* Where reference to images or figures is made, please see original journal article.

Rodrigues Island

Rodrigues Island lies in the Indian Ocean, 560 km north-east of Mauritius. It forms part of the Republic of Mauritius along with Agalega and the St Brandon Group. It is administered from Mauritius and can be reached only by air or sea from Mauritius.

The Island is 13 km long and 6.5 km wide, with a population of 32,000. People are mainly of African origin, although there are descendants of Europeans, Chinese and Indian traders. Whereas Mauritius is predominantly Indian, Rodrigues is 99% Creole. The official language is English but most people communicate in French Creole. Mauritius has developed a dynamic economy based on sugar, tourism, a garment-manufacturing sector, and banking and offshore activities. By contrast, Rodrigues has not developed an economy, and the population is largely engaged in subsistence farming and fishing. The Government is the biggest employer, with about 2000 staff. There is much unemployment, especially among young people leaving school. Many go to Mauritius and create pockets of Rodriguan poverty there, living in shanty towns on the outskirts of Port Louis. The work of Craft Aid focuses on the needs of the handicapped and the very poor by creating employment. At present Craft Aid employs 45 full-time, full-waged people, of whom about 35 are handicapped. It is the third largest private sector employer on the island.

Useful reading in B&D

Zooming in on Rodrigues (Michael Duggan) B&D 31 (1994)

Apicarousel — the carousel management of honeybees (Wayne Kristiansen) B&D 14 (1989)