Bees for Development Journal Edition 73 - December 2004

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FOR DEVELOPMENT JOURNAL

Bees for Development Journal

73

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Residues of medicines used to treat honeybee diseases must not be present in honey: this is the current problem facing beekeepers and the world honey trade. The issues are discussed on pages 6 and 7, and in this edition of BfDJ you will find plenty more information about honey: judging it in the Caribbean (page 10), criteria for honey standards in Asia (page 11} and efforts by projects to market it in Ethiopia (pages 8 and 9). Argentina is one of the world's largest honey producers, and constantly has to meet requirements of importing countries and regions. For this reason, beekeepers' co-operatives must be very well informed and organised: their recent Symposium is reported on page 7. You will also find news of many other beekeeping initiatives around the world: enjoy this wider view of

N

FOR DEVELOPMENT JOURNAL

apiculture!

Niwla Bradheav Readers in developing countries We hope that Bees for Development Journal (BfDJ) encourages you in your beekeeping endeavours. Apiculture is a great way to strengthen livelihoods while at the same time ensuring the maintenance of biodiversity. Bees for Development is here to help you with information and advice. Contact us to receive BfDJ and to join the network.

“We are a farmer-based organisation interested in starting beekeeping now group members have learnt that 60% of crop pollination is done by honeybees. The Association has gained national recognition, covers all the six cocoa growing regions in Ghana, and had its official launch in July 2004. We are appealing for assistance to carry on our mission of capacity building, increasing the farmers' knowledge of beekeeping, links with organisations that can be of help either in kind or financially and links with any trading group.”

Kwasi Owusu-Boadi, Ghana /

“Lam an Extension Officer working with 290 farmer groups for agriculture development and improved livelihoods. am responsible for disseminating agricultural technology, training and advice. Beekeeping is popular in our farming community and we are providing information.

We conduct participatory research and demonstration with the farmers' collaboration. am also Editor of the monthly newsletter Farmers' Friend in Nepali. So we can learn from your experience and expertise, would like to receive BfDJ regularly. If there is such provision please include my name in your mailing list and provide other information related to our Jo hank you very much a |

|

Cover picture: Ethiopia, Amhara Region, 2003. A beekeeper walks to market to sell his calabash of hon Nicola Bradbear

IN THIS ISSUE

ove

Inside information

2

Practical beekeeping

3

Apis PIS Cerana cer.

ia

5

In L Laos

Look and Learn Ahead

5

Honey trade issues

6

|

work Rajendra Uprety, Nepal These are just two examples of the type of requests that arrive daily at Bees for Development. Would you like to help Kwasi Owusu-Boadi, Rajendra Uprety and the many others from whom we receive requests?

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Sponsor a subscription to BfDJ: 20 for one year (including airmail delivery) or 100 to send BfDJ to a beekeeping association in a developing country (ten copies of each issue}.

.

.

Co-operatives Symposium

7

Spotlight on Ethiopia

8

—

A day

in the life of

;

10

Project news from ICIMOD

1]

Notice Board

19

News around the World

Sponsor a workshop box: Copies of BfDJ and other publications for use at training courses and workshops. 50 for 25 participants (includes surface mail delivery).

Book Shelf

14

INSIDE INFORMATION Editor Nicola Bradbear PhD, Co-ordinator Helen Jackson BSc

BfDJ is published quarterly by Bees for Development and read in more than 130 countries.

Subscriber Supporters: Thank you! Your subscription ensures that we continue with our work of providing information and support to beekeepers in developing countries worldwide. Please encourage your friends and colleagues to support Bees for Development Trust.

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for four issues (one year} including airmail delivery. Ways to pay are shown 5. Discounts are available for multiple on page | subscriptions of fen or more.

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Readers in developing countries can pay subscriptions by Beeswax Barter or Candle Currency.

Details on page 16 of BfDJ67.

Copyright: As part of Bees for Development Information Service you are welcome to franslate

pndor reproduce

items

Or

Permission is given on theappearing t in understanding at BIDJ an author(s) are acknowledged, our contact details are provided in full, and you send us a copy of the item, or the website address where it is used. and

Troy, Monmouth

NP25

UK Pho ne +44 (0) 16007 ] 3648 Fax +44 (0)16007 16167 E-maii into@beesfordevelopmentorg Web www.beesfo rd evelopment.or A4AB,

Bees for Development Journal

TRANSFERRING APIS CERANA

73

Practical Beekeeping

Transferring colonies of Apis cerana to frame hives Alejandro C Fajardo and Cleofas R Cervancia, University of Los Bafios, Philippines

Following our article ‘Simple ways to manage stingless bees’ in BfDJ67 we would like to advise on moving colonies of Apis cerana.

Here in the Philippines, wild colonies of the Asian honeybee Apis cerana are abundant. Colonies are found in hollow trunks and crevices. They also inhabit manmade structures including cupboards, ceilings, discarded tyres and pots. The transfer of colonies into hives makes management easier, allowing honey and pollen harvesting and crop pollination.

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Secondly, queens are caged for three days to prevent balling. This is when worker bees surround the queen in a 'ball' and kill her. We observed that the bees have the tendency to ball their queen after transferring, and also sometimes to abscond, which is to abandon the hive and their brood a few hours after being transferred. Caging the queen gives time for the colony to stabilise.

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Photographs

Alejandro C Fajardo

transfer of wild colonies is not a new technology. ever, to prevent absconding we modified the usual practice. First, we do not mount all the combs to the

frames. We mount only selected brood combs and those that have a good number of sealed brood and other stages of development.

We found out that not having all the combs mounted on frames enables the bees to ensure the survival of the newly transferred brood. With all the combs well covered by bees, they are much less susceptible to wax moth infestation. Also, fewer combs mean that the bees can easily fix the damaged combs and clean debris from the

STED

TD

STEP

Locuie fhe nest

STEP 2 Prepare the following materials: o

Hive

e

Smoker

e Bee

e

Knife

e

String

e

e

Hive tool

e

Queen Cage

veil

Flashlight

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Gloves

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Swarm net

3.

Clear the work area and install the swarm net

Smoke the nest entrance

Widen the entrance p to expose the combs

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73

TRANSFERRING APIS CERANA

Photographss

Alejandio C Fajardo

Bees for Development Journal

STEP 8 Mount the comb on to the frame. Select only a few brood combs since not all the field bees are captured

eR

Waef

STEP 6 Shake the comb inside the swarm net. Set aside the comb on top of the inner cover

STEP 7 Catch Hu queen. Insert the cage

in

between

fe

frames

STEP 9 Place the frames inside the hive that in the original nest

STEP 10 Insert a dummy-board between the wall and the first frame and a division board after the last frame

STEP 11 Scoop the remaining bees into the nest using your bare hands

in a

sequence similar to

Bees for Development Journal

Alejandia C Fajarde

LOOK AHEAD

73

APIS CERANA IN LAOS

Photographs

Horst Wendorf, DED, Vientiane

STEP 12 Close the hive, leaving a small gap at the top for ventilation. Cover the entrance

Beekeeping in Laos is with Apis cerana in log hives. For the first time here, our project started experimenting with Apis cerana and top-bar hives. The limited yields and high absconding rate are obstacles. The project has been promoting top-bar hives for many years but without much success. Another problem is how to catch swarms and how to occupy the hives with bees. Usually the rural people take their empty log hives to the fringe of the forest, where many hives become occupied during the bee season. After that they carry the hives back to the village and put them around the storehouses. The problem with this system is that most villages have expanded and little bee forage now remains.

At harvest time, all combs are removed and if the queen has survived, the colonies fly back to the forest. It is strange that bees are only occupying the log hives this way. All other experiments, for example, using top-bars on the log hives, and creating ‘shaken swarms’, have failed. Swarm boxes are not occupied. We continue experimenting with different shapes, entrance holes, heights, baits and so on, and not a single suspended swarm box has been occupied by bees.

Why? have not found any literature regarding this issue and Apis cerana. However, we are continuing - thoughts anyone? |

A new DVD by Horst Wendorf

is reviewed on

page 15

LOOK AHEAD

hog

oT A

EE AALS

BRAZIL: XVI Congresso Brasileiro de Apicultura (XVI Brazilian Apiculture Congress)

May 2006, CBA, Sergipe Further details www.se.sebrae.com.br STEP 13 Move the hive fo the desired location. Feed the bees with equal amounts of sugar and water. Release the queen after three days

BULGARIA: Apiculture

-

Pleven 2005

4-6 February 2005, Pleven

Further details partnersexpo@abv.bg

COLOMBIA:

Il Congresso Internacional de Propolis International Propolis Congress) 31 August - 2 September 2005, Santafe de Bogoté Further details +57 82 66 9162

(II

IRELAND: APIMONDIA International Apicultural Congress 21-26 August 2005, Dublin Further details page 16 TRINIDAD & TOBAGO: 4th Caribbean Beekeeping Congress Trinidad 2005 Further details to be announced UK: British Beekeepers’ Spring Convention 16 April 2005, Stoneleigh Park Further details www.bbka.org.uk

LEARN AHEAD STEP 14 Monitor the colony once a week. Make sure that there are enough stores. Protect fhe colony from ants and other pests

|:

ANEAD

Bees for Development arranges beekeeping study tours and visits world-wide that can last for a few days or for several months. Tailor made to suit requirement and budget.

See below for contact address.

GERMANY: Apitherapy Congress, Expo and Course 1-6 April 2005, Passau Further details www.apitherapy.com

MORE ABOUT ASIAN BEES 8th Asian Apicultural Association Conference 20-24 March 2006, Perth, Australia Further details kfewster@iinet.net.au

IRELAND: Irish Beekeepers’ Summer Course 25-30 July 2005, Gormanston Further details eosbee@indigo.ie USA: Organic Beekeeping Workshop 29-30 April, 2005, Chestnut Ridge, NY Further details www.info@pfeiffercenter.org If you want notice of your conference, workshop or meeting to be included here send details to Bees for Development, Troy, Monmouth, NP25 4AB, UK. E-mail info@beesfordevelopment.org

Bees for Development Journal

73

HONEY TRADE ISSUES

HONEY TRADE ISSUES The following article by Michael Durham was published in the UK newspaper The Guardian in July this year.

We reproduce it here, with kind permission from The Guardian, to inform readers of the difficult issues surrounding world trade in honey.

bitter taste of honey: stinging accusations of foul play in the

A

beekeeping world have exposed the ruthless side of a global trade Michael Durham

The cosy-sounding world of honey has been going through turbulent times.

When Northumbrian honey farmer Willie Robson blew the whistle on a fellow beekeeper, Richard Brodie, for potting Argentine honey and passing it off as Scottish borders honey, the court case that resulted last week before Berwick-onTweed magistrates exposed some of the tough realities of an intensely competitive international business.

The most significant of these realities is that bees - like any creature - can get sick so beekeepers in some countries

Wier Full range beekeeping equipment suppliers jars, packaging, filling

machines

world-wide export

i Swienty A/S, Hortoftvej 16, 6400 Sonderborg, Denmark Phone +45 74 48 69 69 Fax +45 74 48 80 01 e-mail: sales@swienty.com

www.swienty.com

administer small doses of antibiotics. The less scrupulous overstep the limits by dosing hives with excessive levels or banned drugs.

Britain produces only about one-tenth of the honey it consumes. The rest, about 22,000 tonnes of the sticky amber imported from countries all over the world, is often blended before sale. But how can we be sure that the honey in the pot is what the label says?

boardroom of Britain's biggest honey packer, Rowse - based in the Oxfordshire town of Wallingford, at the heart of Britain's ‘honey valley’ operations director Brian Butcher says that for legitimate blenders, "the trouble is there are so many places in the world where people are selling dodgy honey.

Once you spot a problem area, it moves elsewhere".

In the

In January this year, 14,000 jars labelled ‘Produce of India’ were stopped for testing at Felixstowe docks. The honey turned out to be contaminated with chloramphenicol, a wide-spectrum antibiotic banned in food production in most countries. In susceptible individuals, it can cause a fatal blood condition, aplastic anaemia.

And the country most associated with the use of chloramphenicol on bees? China whose honey had consequently been banned on health grounds by the EU in 2002. Commenting on the Felixstowe seizure, Vijay Sardana, head of the indian trade body CITA, said that India believed Chinese honey was being smuggled into India through Nepal, repackaged and then sold abroad.

China rejects such accusations, saying that competitor nations have a vested interest in peddling untruths to get China's honey pushed off the market. And Beijing has received new support from Brussels, which has just rescinded the import ban after EU inspectors confirmed that China was moving to stop chloramphenicol use and establish an effective control and detection system for food safety.

During the two-year EU ban, the disappearance of legal Chinese honey caused upheaval. For years it had been a basic ingredient in blended honeys because of its sweetness and cheapness now packers worldwide switched to Argentine, Mexican and east-European honey.

Yet chloramphenicol-tainted honey kept turning up. Singapore suddenly

6

discovered a penchant for beekeeping surprising in a country which, according to Bee Culture magazine, "has no bees" in the commercial sense. Overnight in early 2002, just as Chinese honey was banned by the EU, Singapore became the world's fourth biggest honey exporter and the tonnage of honey sold to Australia, which in 2001 had been zero, leaped to nearly 1,500 tonnes.

As emails and faxes kept arriving at honey packers in Europe and the US offering cheap honey from some unlikely places, investigators came to a startling conclusion: contaminated honey from China was being relabelled and offer for sale as the produce of third-world countries. In the past ~

12 months, honey labelled as the produce of Cyprus, Tanzania, Moldova, Romania, Argentina, Portugal, Hungary, Spain, Bulgaria and Vietnam has turned up in European ports, honey blenders and supermarkets, testing positive for chloramphenicol. In this period, it has been found in 14 consignments intercepted in Europe and the EU's ‘rapid alert' food safety system in Brussels has been notified.

China challenges all attempts to brand its exporters as honey launderers, or its industry as the sole source of contaminated honey. “It is just not fair to immediately classify as Chinese honey anything containing chloramphenicol", says.

it ,

A detailed official statement to The Guardian throws the chloramphenicol allegations back at other honey producers: "Antibiotic in honey is a global problem, not just a problem to China’, it says, adding that the industry organisation Apimondia convened world conferences* in Germany in 2002 and 2004 to discuss this problem, after a survey of the international honey industry reported that "sulfonamides were found in Canadian honey, tetracycline and streptomycin in American, Mexican and Argentine honey, miticides and insecticides in American honey and chloramphenicol in Chinese and European honey".

Regardless of the origins of the honey on sale in the shops, the question now for Britain's consumers will be: how safe is it?

During the ban on Chinese honey, the UK government's veterinary residues committee said it found just five samples

Bees for Development Journal

COOPERATIVES SYMPOSIUM

of chloramphenicol-contaminated honey - labelled as being from Argentina, Romania and Moldova - in British shops.

Officials cannot possibly check all 22,000 tonnes imported from abroad, and it appears they follow a system to test only where there are good grounds for suspicion. But with contaminated honey detected in exports from countries as diverse as Spain, Portugal and Argentina, can any country be deemed safe?

According to Butcher, who is also chairman of the Honey Association, a trade body, the British importers and packers who actually put most of the honey info the jars are on top of the problem. "Now we test everything and we stick with suppliers we know and trust.

When they found contaminated Moldovan honey, every honey packer in the UK knew about it within the day. We confident nothing will get through".

---

.

Honey Association's technical adviser

is Peter Martin, an expert on pollen analysis whose hobby is learning

Mandarin Chinese and who keeps a freezer full of honey samples from all over the world in his kitchen.

Martin has travelled three times to visit Chinese honey farms and is struggling to master the language because, he says, he believes the future for safe honey lies in persuading the Chinese to produce it, not just telling the Chinese to keep their honey to themselves. Martin has never found chloramphenicol in any samples sent to him for analysis by British packers.

Meanwhile, another phenomenon has been adding to the turbulence in the global honey market - ultrafiltered or ‘UF’ ey. First noticed in the US, it is honey almost everything taken out, including the impurities.

Bruce Boynton, chief executive of

America's National Honey Board, told The Guardian: "| am not aware of chloramphenicol-contaminated honey entering the US any more. Now it looks like they have found a way to remove the contamination. At least some of the stuff coming in from China appears to be something other than honey". In a test by the board earlier this year, nine out of 69 samples taken from American supermarket shelves proved to be UF honey.

- as distinct

from the ‘fineThis product filtered honey’ marketed in Britain by companies such as Gales is, according to most honey experts, not honey at all.

Instead it is 'a sweetener derived from honey’ - honey that has been diluted with gallons of water, heated up to a high temperature, passed through an ultra-

fine ceramic or carbon filter, and then evaporated down to a syrup again. In the process, every trace of impurity including, some believe, traces of chloramphenicol - are removed.

America believes that UF, rather than contaminated honey, is now the real threat to the purity of honey internationally. "It started coming in a year or so ago", Boynton said. "It's got a yellowish cast, and it's a little thicker than real honey, and it doesn't taste like regular honey either. We're developing a good, reliable test for it with a research institute in Oregon. The thing about this stuff is that it's incredibly cheap. A lot of packers deny it, but imagine it could be used quite widely in the American food |

industry instead of the real thing".

Hundreds of miles away in Texas, beekeeper Jerry Stroope is just as forthright. Stroope, who farms 6,000 bee colonies across 100 square miles of Texas to produce indigenous wildflower and tallow tree varieties, complains: "Nobody can prove it yet, but my guess is that all the big food manufacturers are using this stuff. And the US government is not going to take these boys on - they are just too powerful".

So the sting in the tail is that, if Stroope and the US National Honey Board are right, who needs to launder honey across international borders if you can simply ultrafilter it instead?

UF honey may not as yet have reached these shores. A spokeswoman for the Food Standards Agency said: "We are not aware of ‘ultrafiltered' honey entering the UK, and the process described would go against the spirit of the UK's honey regulations and would result in a product not of the nature, substance or quality expected by consumers. We will be talking to the relevant enforcement authorities to advise them of the possibility of products of this nature entering the UK".

Butcher says British packers have never encountered the stuff. "If UF honey does exist, am certain we would be able to tell. don't think it could be imported into Europe. By all accounts it is tasteless and colourless. We would know from the tests that something was wrong and we would |

|

not use it".

Article

Michael Durham

*Proceedings of the Ist Apimondia International Symposium: Prevention of residues in honey are available on CD from BfD price 20 (€30) Code VID31 (see BfDJ72 for review).

73

Argentina hosts

Beekeepers'

Cooperatives and Associations Mendoza, in the heart of Argentina's wine growing area, with the Andes Mountains as a backdrop, provided the meeting place for the First World Symposium on Beekeepers' Cooperatives and Associations in early September 2004. 600 people participated in the meeting. Amazingly, the organisers were in the unfortunate position of having to turn people away, as the venue was full to capacity! Participants came from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, France, Honduras, Italy, Mexico, New Zealand, Spain, Uruguay, UK and Vietnam. The objective was to allow beekeepers' organisations to discuss and learn about the concepts involved in co-operative working. After introductory plenary sessions, participants formed eight groups to discuss and review learn about different aspects of co-operative working.

Discussions were wide ranging and covered socioeconomics, politics and development issues.

The Symposium was organised, in co-operation with APIMONDIA, by: Federacién Argentina de Cooperativas Apicolas; Cooperativas Agrarias Federadas de Uruguay; Red Apicola Nacional de Chile; Consejo Federal de Inversiones de la Argentina; Gobierno de la Provincia de Mendoza

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INVERSIONES

We acknowledge the support of Consejo Federal de Inversiones in enabling Nicola Bradbear's participation in this Symposium

Apiculture in Argentina Annually Argentina products around 90,000 tonnes of honey. Almost all of this is exported, making Argentina one of the largest honey exporting countries after China. Export value is US$90 million.

This honey is produced by honeybees working in 2.5 million hives, each colony yielding 30-35 kg per year. The bees are cared for by 25,000 beekeepers, although 90,000 people may be employed by the sector throughout the year.

Other apicultural products from Argentina include pollen, propolis and royal jelly.

Bees for Development Journal

73

SPOTLIGHT

SPOTLIGHT on ETHIOPIA Beekeeping in south and southwestern Ethiopia Amssalu Bezabeh, Holeta

Bee Research Centre, Holeta

Area description The south and south-western region of Ethiopia borders with Kenya and Sudan. The main vegetation is tropical wood and thorn bushland, also grassland and savannah. Almost all the major forests of Ethiopia are located here (Amssalu, 2002). The region has two honeybee races: Apis mellifera scutellata and Apis mellifera woyi-gambella. The former occupies the humid midlands, and the latter the lowlands (Amssalu et al, 2004).

Most of the areas with good potential for beekeeping are located within this region.

Keeping bees Farmer beekeepers use their indigenous knowledge and locally available materials to keep honeybees. More than 99% of the honeybee colonies in Ethiopia, in general and in this region, are managed using traditional local methods. Beekeeping takes place mainly in the forest. Farmer beekeepers in the Masha (part of this region) share the existing natural forest amongst themselves exclusively for beekeeping. This portion of forest is not used by other beekeepers without permission of the owner.

Ownership passes from generation to generation. It is common to observe 20-30 hives hung on a single big-branched tree.

Beekeepers may own between 10-600 colonies: this number is part of the criteria used to determine a beekeeper's social standing within the community.

Hives Beekeepers use log, bark and bamboo hives. Log hives and bark hives are made mainly from Ficus sycomorus, Albizia schimperiana, Acacia abyssinica, Cordia africana and Ficus vasta, while bamboo hives are made from the stems and leaves of bamboo. Log hives are preferred to bamboo hives for a number of reasons: a log hive is more durable (can be passed down from generation to generation), easier and requiring less time to make (according to beekeepers, 10 log hives or one bamboo hive can be made in a day) and as it is split, it is easy to open and harvest the honey. Moreover the cost of a log hive is cheaper than a bamboo hive: one log hive costs US$0.25 while a bamboo hive costs US$0.50-0.75. However some farmer beekeepers complain that honeybee colonies in log hives abscond more frequently than those in bamboo hives. Log hives also become heavier and more difficult to hang in a tree when they have been in use for long periods.

Swarm catching Farmer beekeepers mostly acquire their colonies by trapping swarms. To attract swarms, bait hives are smoked either with leaves from Clausena anisata, or Olea europaea or the bark from Syzygium guineense, or leaves and chips from Cordia africana. Hives are hung on Syzygium guineense or Cordia africana. Local beekeepers believe that these specific trees together with the smoking of the bait hives attract swarms. The occupation rate of the bait hives in the forestland region is about 67% per year (Nuru ef al, 2003).

Honey harvest

Regarding honeybee management, no attention is given to the colonies. Beekeepers only visit colonies in the honey flow period.

During honey harvesting beekeepers climb up the tree and send the hive to the ground either by means of a rope tied around the

centre of the hive or by throwing the hive down, thereby destroying the colony. When the first method is used, smoking materials such as Teff straw, a bundle of sticks and sometimes (though rarely), cow dung is used to calm and chase bees away.

Beekeepers remove all the contents from the hive and mix the pollen, brood and honey for sale, or for making Tej' (honey wine) for their own consumption.

The colour of honey in the region varies accordingly to season and place, depending upon which honey plants are available.

White honey is cropped during April to May when Schefflera abyssinica flowers abundantly, while yellow or amber honey is harvested during September to November from Bidens spp, Vernonia spp, Syzygium guineense, Albizia gummifera and other honey plants. White honey fetches a higher price than other types of honey. Honey is one of the main sources of income for farmers. However marketing of honey has not been well developed except by some honey dealers found in a few towns.

The market value of beeswax is unknown to most beekeepers and thus it is not separated from the honey. ‘Tej' makers are 1 only ones who benefit from beeswax: they buy crude honey cheaply from beekeepers and make ‘Tej'. After fermentation they sieve the 'Tej' and collect beeswax 'Sefef', which is then sold to beeswax collectors who channel this product to refineries in Addis Ababa. in the extreme south-western part of the region (Gambella), brood is second only to honey as the main product from the

harvest. Beekeepers harvest brood from colonies, which do not produce a lot of honey. This is very important for the Mazangir tribe. Bee brood is the main source of protein for farmer beekeepers, and children are fed bee brood as a substitute for milk.

Honey hunting Most of the Agnuwak tribe do not keep honeybees, as they are nomadic. However they are honey hunters and the honey is used only for their own consumption and is not sold unlike other tribes of the area. Like Mazangir people, they also eat bee brood.

Honey hunters roam through the forest and mountainous areas searching for bees' nests. They look for holes in trees, bee activity or use the honey guide birds ([itals]Indicator indicator[end]).

Honey hunters call the honey guides by whistling. The honey guide directs the hunters to the honeybee nest by flying back and forth between the hunters and the nest. The honey guide can lead the hunters to hives hung in a tree or wild nests situated in a tree hole, termite mound or cliff. Honey hunters never rob hives, as stealing honey from hives in Agnuwak and Mazenger is culturally unacceptable. Thus hunters encourage honey guide birds to lead them to other wild nests. When bees are situated in a hole in a tree, excessive smoke and fire are used to force the bees out. If the nest is inaccessible to the hunters, the tree ts cut down and the nest contents are collected. Some honey and brood are given to the honey guide birds as a reward for their services. A honey hunter could harvest 3-4 wild honeybee nests per day. Honey hunters are blamed for causing forest fires and for the decline of honeybee colonies.

References 1, Amssalu B., et al (2004) Multivariate morphometric analysis of honeybees (Apis mellifera) in the Ethiopian Region. Apidologie 35:

71-81.

2. Amssalu B. (2002) Multivariate morphometric analysis and behaviour of honeybee (Apis mellifera L) in Southern Regions of Ethiopia. PhD Thesis,

Rhodes University, South Africa.

3. Nuru A., ef al (2002) Swarming and migration in honeybees (Apis mellifera) of Ethiopia. Journal of Apicultural Research 40(1-2): 35-41.

Bees for Development Journal

Good results: tips on the

Number

performance of apiculture development and marketing Ttilahun Gebey, Bahir Dar

1

Royal Netherlands Government is implementing The Apiculture Development and Trade Promotion Project that supports beekeepers’ co-operatives in Amhara Regional State. The aim of the Project is to improve the well-being of smallholder beekeepers by enabling them fo produce high quality bee products and to enhance domestic and international markets.

The beekeeper farmer co-operatives in Amhara Region are the owners of this Project and they are supported with technical advice from the lead partners.

Since its inception in July 2003, the Project has succeeded in organising four marketing co-operatives. These are legally reaistered and linked with credit facilities, and bought 40 tonnes ioney during the first harvest in October to December 2003. market surveys show that there is a promising opportunity to sell honey, beeswax and other bee products both locally and overseas.

Specialists from reputable institutions have been commissioned to provide technical assistance in various aspects of honey production, processing, quality control and marketing. In line with these efforts we received remarkable laboratory test results from a German company for our honey, summarised as follows:

Problems with honey badgers

Test Results

Character

European Standard

Ethiopian Standard

Moisture content, % by mass

21.0 max

21.0 max

17.2

0.2

2

Total ash, % by mass

0.6

0.6

3

Total reducing sugar content,% by mass

65.0 min

65.0 min

68.9

4

Acidity

40.0 max

40.0 max

34.9

5

Hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF)

60.0 max

80.0 max

21.3

6

Sucrose content, % by mass

5.0 max

5.0 max

0.38

SOS Sahel International (UK) with financial support from The

73

This result is not a miracle and neither is it something obtained by chance. It is the outcome of our efforts fo improve on traditional ways of harvesting, handling, transportation, processing and quality control.

We have participated in six exhibitions organised in our country, many overseas companies have been contacted, and we have received good feedback. This reveals that in the near future we will enter the world market with the best honey. As for supply, the potential in our region is enough to enter the anticipated market. The co-operatives that we have organised are expected to purchase and process a Pure O:ganic Honey minimum of 180 tonnes of :

honey every year starting from 2004.

Saperigr

bality

We have presented the products to Ethiopian supermarkets with this label: am looking to expand am Abrham Tesfaye, from Arbaminch.

In this year was able to May my beekeeping enterprise. hives to my apiary for travel and a motor carrying cycle purchase 12 km away from my home [Picture 2]. Previously my transport |

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bicycle. system was need to protect my bees from disturbance by honey badgers.

In April and June this year my apiary was severely damaged by a

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attacks. [Picture 1] Information and assistance would be appreciated.

Ed: Honey badgers are a serious problem for beekeepers in Ethiopia as elsewhere in East and southern Africa. This is why locally evolved beekeeping methods place hives in trees, sately out of the badgers' reach. To protect wooden frame hives, you need to make them inaccessible to badgers either by placing them in a building, surrounding them with wire, suspending them from posts with wires, or hanging them in trees! These are all expensive solutions, and it is very difficult to work with frame hives that are suspended by wires. You could try cement or clay hives as described below. Alternatively uses local style hives and harvest from these without harming the bees.

APICULTURE FOR RURAL DEVELOPMENT

Picture

The Apimondia Congress in Dublin (21-26 August 2005) will include a three-day workshop, teaching beekeeping methods appropriate for the natural resources, economic and social conditions prevailing in developing countries. Taught by experts from Africa, the Caribbean, Europe and beyond, participants will learn the practicalities of low technology beekeeping and how to

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help people generate income from bees in sustainable ways.

www.apimondia2005.com www.beesfordevelopment.org Picture 2

Bees for Development Journal

73

A DAY IN THE LIFE

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF DINAH SWEET Presenting a honey judge's workshop in Trinidad 5.30 am Tobago

- Collected by my long-time friend, Gladstone Solomon, en route to Crown Point Airport. Our conversation was about the devastation from hurricane Ivan the previous week.

Sadly there had been one death on Tobago and lots of roofs blown away, and some huge trees uprooted. As the Trinidad & Tobago (T&T} beekeepers had some warning of the adverse weather, most hives had been tied down and secured. (Grenada 560 km away had been flattened when the hurricane struck with full force, and many lives lost). On the short flight we discussed the practicalities of making mead.

7.05 am Trinidad

-

Driving to the Department of Agriculture in central Trinidad, the venue for this workshop on the assessment and judging of T&T honey. On arrival we entered a large airconditioned room with over 100 jars of honey plus other bee products such as pollen, candles and beeswax, arranged on tables. was introduced to Shaun, a lively, busy commercial beekeeper and the main organiser of the workshop. watched as the officials anonymised the jars so that there would be no bias in the assessment.

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8.30 am

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President of Tobago Apicultural Society and BfDJ's Caribbean Correspondent, Mr Gladstone Solomon (left) discusses honey with Mr M KI Hallim, T&T's Government Inspector of Apiaries.

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final 'best of the lot! was agreed and the 1.30 pm collaborative tasks came to an end with lunch. All the winning honeys were to be displayed in a large show at the end of November with many stands selling honey and bee products.

The room quickly filled up with beekeepers from all sides of the island. Everyone joined in enthusiastically as we considered practical and scientific strategies for producing the perfect jar of honey.

9.30 am

A

The introduction by Mr Hallim, T&T's Government inspector of Apiaries. He was looking remarkably good after a recent heart bypass operation and was truly on form. continued the seminar and we exchanged ideas about the objective criteria that should be used first in assessing honey, such as cleanliness and brightness. We also talked about the local climatic conditions of very high humidity and high ambient temperature and the practicalities of extracting only fully sealed and ripened honey to maintain a good quality product.

Subjective criteria were then discussed which are much more difficult to standardise, as taste and smell vary according to gender, age and whether the honey judge smokes.

2.00 pm - gave a quick account of the assessment criteria for the pollen, candles and beeswax which then left the organisers the task of decoding the results and announcing the winners. Theworkshop concluded with a summary of the important outcomes achieved and the processes involved in getting there. |

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3.15 pm - The feedback was that everyone had really enjoyed the day. This honey show had been a model of collaboration in action, concluding with a good feeling of achievement all round. will always remember this day as was awarded a special trophy for ‘conducting the workshop and judging of beekeepi.., products in a sincere and professional manner. |

10.30 am - During a working breakfast the team of nine local honey judges (some experienced judges' stewards but most new to judging honey), thrashed out the final objective criteria that we would use to set an agreed standard, and also the ranking of these criteria. Showing excellent teamwork skills, we listened to everyone's opinions before drawing up a consensus.

Dinah Sweet is a Welsh honey judge with a Diploma in Apiculture from Cardiff University, where she is a lecturer in the School of

Health Care Studies

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Provided with white coats and pure cotton gloves for the judging, and after a few photographs for a national newspaper, we were organised into five groups of three. Every group included a scribe to note the grades for each characteristic and to write down relevant feedback comments. Each team was assigned a different area of the island from where they lived, to prove to the participants that no bias was involved. was part of one team but kept an eye on the others, eavesdropping on the conversations to verify that their final decisions were really a consensus of ideas. The room ‘buzzed' with dialogue, humour, critical appraisal and respect for one other. number of amazing light boxes had been made to use in the judging process, to check the clarity of the honey. This island honey show was even an improvement on the facilities at the National Honey Show in London.

11.00 am

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Next opportunity Tobago and Trinidad 7-17 March 2005 Beekeeping - travel - new friends lifetime experiences To book contact B/D - NOW! Our Safaris are part of our work to promote beekeeping as a worthwhile and sustainable activity for development

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From 2004: "All in ail, a brilliant holiday and | can't wait to go back" - Pam Hunter, West Sussex “Thank you for all the thought and effort that you put into the planning and the caring way in which you looked after us all..." - Tony Hall, Gloucester

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ICIMOD

PROJECT NEWS

Bees for Development Journal

73

information from @yemop

International standards discriminate against honey from indigenous bees Surendra R Joshi, Farooq Ahmad, Uma Partap, and Min B Gurung Here we bring you another article with news about the work of the Austrian Government funded beekeeping project at ICIMOD in Kathmandu, Nepal. In BfDJ 72 we discussed extending the beekeeping programme to the grassroots through rural development organisations in the Hindu Kush-Himalayan region.

Here we describe the problem of international standards and the moisture content of wild bee honey.

set for the moisture content of honey affect those who cannot afford a dehydration machine or honey processing plant. The standards for moisture contents of honey need to be reviewed and particular attention paid to the higher natural moisture

content of honey from Apis dorsata and Apis laboriosa bees.

Honey samples should be analysed from all bee species and from different geographical areas, and the results used as a basis for setting new species - specific honey grade standards.

The purity and - to some extent - quality of honey is generally evaluated from a physical and chemical analysis of its constituents. The International Honey Commission, which is officially recognised by the FAO Codex Alimentarius, has set certain constituents as quality criteria (Bogdanov et al, 1999).

These include moisture, apparent reducing sugar, apparent ose, water insoluble solids, mineral (ash) content, diastase acivity, and HMF (hydroxymethylfurfural). According to the Codex standards, the maximum permissible levels of moisture in honey are 20 g/100 g for general honey, 23 g/100 g for heather and clover honey, and 25 g/100 g for industrial or bakery honey. The quality standards are set on the basis of nectar or honeydew sources and there is some flexibility for certain unifloral types of honey, but not for honey from different species of bees. A number of reports from Asian countries suggest, however, that the honey harvested from wild living honeybee species (Apis dorsata, Apis laboriosa and Apis florea) has a higher moisture content than Apis mellifera honey. This has serious implications for the honey hunters and beekeepers of the Hindu KushHimalayan region. In order to assess the situation better we investigated the moisture content of honey from wild bee sources

Ed: According to EU honey criteria, to be traded as honey within the EU, honey must originate from Apis mellifera honeybees.

Honey hunters trom Kaski, Nepal, with jars of Apis laboriosa honey

in Nepal.

We collected 73 samples of honey, 59 from Apis dorsata bees and 14 from Apis laboriosa bees. Cutting a piece of honeycomb directly from the colony, moisture content was measured with a hand refractometer. The moisture content of the Apis dorsata ay ranged from 21.0-26.0 9/100 g with an average of g/100 g; that of the Apis laboriosa honey ranged from 20.8-29.6 g/100 g with an average of 24.6 g/100 g. Our results confirm earlier reports that the honey produced by wild honeybees has a higher moisture content than the maximum allowable content set by the Codex Alimentarius (see Table). This means that a major part of the honey produced in the Hindu Kush-Himalayan region that produced by wild honeybees - is almost completely excluded from export markets.

The amount of honey affected is enormous. In India, for example, at least 22,000 tonnes of honey are collected annually from wild Apis dorsata colonies, double the amount of apiary honey produced by Apis cerana and Apis mellifera (Wakhle & Pal, 2002). Similarly in Nepal almost 50% of the annual honey harvest is from wild bees. Honey hunters and beekeepers often face problems in selling this honey because of its higher moisture content: they are offered very low prices for Apis dorsata and non-toxic Apis laboriosa honey. The exception is Apis florea and intoxicating Apis laboriosa honey, which command higher prices, even with the higher moisture content, because of their reputed medicinal properties, but this market is irregular.

It is the small, local producers, honey hunters and beekeepers, who suffer. The large companies and honey exporters process and dehydrate the honey and make a good profit. The standards

mem

"

aera mills ulster

Author

Country

Apis dorsata

Apis laboriosa

ICIMOD (2004}

Nepal

23.7 (N=59)

24.6 (N=14}

Wakhle and Pal (2002)

India

17.2-24.9

Joshi (1999)

Nepal

21.5 (N= 28)

Nepal

23.2 (N= 10)

Philippines

23.1 (N=5)

23.4(N=10) Shrestha

Apis florea

20.0-22.1 24 (N= 2)

(1998)* Laude et al

(1991)*

Olek et al

25.3

Nepal

(1987)* Phadke (1968}*

India

20.9 (N=20)

Mitra and Mathew (1968)*

India

23.5 (N=14)

Nair et af (1950]*

India

16.5 (N=5)

23.8 (N=1)

Note: *references cited in Joshi, 1999

References

BOGDANCOY, S. et al (1999} Honey Quality and International Regulatory Standards: review by the International Honey Commission. Bee World (80): 61-69.

R. (1999) Physico-chemical and Melissopalynological Characteristics of Nepalese Honey. PhD Thesis, University of Agricultural Sciences, Vienna, Austria.

JOSHI, S.

WAKHLE, D.M., PAL, N. (2002) Honey and Hive Products in India - Present Status.

In Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Tropical Bees: Management and Diversity, and 5th AAA Conference, Chiang Mai, Thailand, March 2000. IBRA, Cardiff, UK.

11

Bees for Development Journal

73

NEWS AROUND THE WORLD

NEWS AROUND THE WORLD ARMENIA The Multi Agro Beekeeping Centre, opened in September, is working with 2,567 beekeepers. This year, of 14 tonnes of honey harvested, half was retained to feed to the bees. Centre Director, Roza Tsarukyan, says honey will be exported in the future, and they have plans also to export pollen and medicines.

Source: Al Plus, September 19, 2004 (in INFO CENN, 30.9.04) BRAZIL Record for deforestation The 2005 edition of the Guinness Book of Records will be published in November with an embarrassing record for Brazil: it has the world's highest deforestation index.

The annual forest loss was 22,264 km?.

Brazilian researchers confirm the information. Amazonia lost 17% of its forestry cover, principally in the last 50 years. The researcher from the National Spatial Research Institute, Carlos Nobre, admits that Brazil has the largest deforested area with respect to the size of the country. Dalton Valeriano, who continually monitors Amazonia deforestation, states that the most common

Do your bees

make propolis?

use for deforested lands in the region is cattle ranching. In second place comes agriculture and much of this is growing cattle feed. The deforestation rhythm in Amazonia has registered a growing rate in the last five years. In 2002/3 for example, the area deforested was 23,750 km2. In the period 1977-1988, only 21,050 km2 were cut down.

Source: Radiobras, 9 October 2004 (in Amazon News, 14.10.04)

CONGO Everything has been destroyed by five years of war - the groups who had 200 hives now have less than 20. In the forests, where only Land Rovers or Hilux vehicles can go, the beekeepers burn the area to get the honey and thus destroy the honeybee colonies. The new NGO, APIFLORDEV (of which am a member), is preparing two projects to develop beekeeping near the frontier with Gabon.

Many women and pygmies want to become true beekeepers. The equatorial forest can give great quantities of honey, but the villagers do not eat it because the price is too high for them. The EU and UNDP are interested by these projects.

André Romet, APIFLORDEV |

CONGRATULATIONS

was created in 1901, the Prize Committee said, "Mrs Maathai (Kenya's

We would like to test it

it

and possibly buy

from you.

James Fearnley of BeeVital

is a leading

world authority on the nature of propolis & its medicinal properties, he is author of Bee Propolis-Natural Healing from the Hive retailing at 7.99 plus p&p.

A major research project has been started by BeeVital and we would like your help.

If you are interested in finding out whether your propolis is suitable for medicinal use and learning about sustainable ways of harvesting & using propolis please send a sample (50g) to:

BeeVital, Brereton Lodge, Goathland, Whitby, North Yorkshire

YO22 5JR, UK

Tel: ++44 (0) 1947 896037 Fax: ++44 (0) 1947 896482

Email: info@beevitalpropolis.com

country that suffers from an extremely high rate of unemployment and poverty.

These problems are most acute among rural communities because of limited access to livelihood opportunities, land, water, sanitation and education. Find Your Feet (FYF), an international development charity, is working with the organisations Vusumnotto (meaning to restart the economy) and Lujilo Lwamaswati (Swazi Beekeepers' Association) to promote beekeeping and honey production. Because of low start-up costs and the rapidly increasing market for organic honey, beekeeping is proving to be a lucrative and sustainable small business activity. The indigenous. honeybee species Apis mellifera scute is present throughout Swaziland.

Traditionally, honey collectors would smoke out wild bees from their nests by using burning sticks or rags: this often resulted in fires that destroyed large areas of forestland. The FYF programme encourages the use of smokers that greatly reduce the risk of fire hazards.

NOTICE BOARD NOTICE BOARD Environmentalist and human rights campaigner Wangari Maathai awarded the Nobel! Peace Prize. The first African woman to receive the Award since it

www.beevitalpropolis.com

SWAZILAND Find Your Feet with top-bar hives Swaziland is a small, resource-poor

deputy environment minister), is an example for all Africans fighting for democracy and peace". In the late 1970s Mrs Maathai led a campaign called the 'Green Belt Movement! to plant millions of trees across Africa to slow deforestation. The Movement grew to include projects to preserve biodiversity, educate people about their environment and promote the rights of women and girls.

Full story at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/

hi/world/africa/3726024.stm

PROJECT SUPPORT FAO, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, supports beekeeping projects in

developing countries. Beekeepers' groups and associations may apply for small project funding (less than US$10,000) from the TeleFood Special Fund. Request documents should include a brief description of the

12

project's objectives, the proposed food production or income-generating activities, the work plan, the number of participants, a detailed list of inputs with cost estimates and the reporting arrangements. Submit your request to the office of FAO or UNDP in your country. Applications for projects wit

budgets over US$10,000 must be submitted through a Government Ministry. See www.fao.org Remember to tell BfD the outcome of your application

BEE CRAFT A full colour monthly magazine for beginners and experts alike covering all aspects of beekeeping in the UK and Ireland. FREE SAMPLE COPY on request, 20 for 12 issues. Credit cards accepted.

Contact secretary@bee-craft.com

ULUDAG BEE JOURNAL Publication of Uludag Beekeeping Association. Quarterly, in Turkish with English titles and summaries of articles.

News, practical information and research articles - a link between Turkish beekeeping and the world.

Contact www.uludagaricilik.org

NEWS AROUND THE WORLD

Bees for Development Journal

Local people have also been introduced to the idea of 'putting bees into boxes'.

Two different kinds of hives are used in the programme: top-bar hives and Langstroth (frame) hives. The top-bar hive is popular because it is easy to build, simple to use, and can be made

locally using readily available materials.

So far more than 3,000 people have received training in beekeeping skills: hive construction; honey harvesting and processing; packaging and marketing of honey; sewing protective clothing; and small business management. The money generated through the sale of the honey is giving local people the chance to improve their standards of living and means that they can now afford to send their children to school. Sibhulutja Sabomake Association consists of 15 women, nine of whom are widows.

Group Leader, Phumsile Vilakati, is imnressed by the new employment iortunity: “In my local village, many people don't have jobs. A lot of women have suffered from the deaths of their husbands and find it very hard to support their families. group of us got together to try to find a solution to this problem, and we decided that it was a good idea to start working with bees. We didn't have much money to set up businesses, but beekeeping was within our means. We joined the programme and were told to form a community group so that training and support could be given collectively to a number of women. We were then trained by the Beekeepers' Association.

At first we harvested only a little honey, but now things have progressed and we have built 30 hives. Income from honey sales is supporting us. We make sure that we reinvest some of the money into or community group so that we can struct more hives. We like bees and ure motivated by the opportunities that they provide to us".

Gila Orkin, Find Your Feet, UK

TANZANIA Greetings from the miombo woodlands In previous years, beekeepers had difficulty in marketing their honey.

However, since 2003 the situation has changed in favour of beekeepers. The price of a bucket of honey (weighing about 28 kg) went up from Tsh10,000 (US$9.5) in 2002, to Tsh15,000 (US$14.2) in 2003 and now (September 2004} to Tsh20,000 (US$19). By December this year the price is likely to be Tsh25,000. These are the prices offered to beekeepers in the villages of Tabora Region. In Tabora town and nearby towns the price varies between

Tsh24,000-28,000.

In

Dar-es-Salaam,

Arusha and Mwanza the price is higher.

Business people travel to the villages looking for honey at competitive prices.

This is further good news for the beekeepers. Part of my work is to attract as many buyers as possible. In addition, many Tanzanians are increasing consumption of honey in their daily meals and in medicines.

Liana Hassan, BfDJ's Correspondent in Tanzania

A

ZIMBABWE Ten orphaned children from Shazhaume Primary School registered with Kutsungirira Beekeeping Club (KBC) for beekeeping training during their school

73

holidays in April 2004. The course began with a video showing beekeeping in different countries. The children walked 20 km with adult beekeepers, to Neshuro, to watch and discuss the film.

After two days the location moved to my apiary for six more days. We covered colony management, equipment and its construction, colony life and health and business management. In June the children met for another six days at KBC apiary for plenty of honey harvesting, processing, packaging, product making and marketing.

Thanks to the support of St Henricus School in The Netherlands, ten Shazhaume children each received beekeeping training and a hive. Support for the purchase of more equipment and hives would be highly appreciated.

These children are without enough food, clothes, shelter and school fees, as a result of the loss of their parents due to AIDS, constant droughts, floods and prevailing economic hardships.

Michael Hlungwani Programme Co-ordinator PostScript: Michael sent the good news that Plan International contributed 50 more hives. Soon the KBC shop will start operating along Harare Beitbridge Road making beekeeping visible to everyone!

Fllen Michaelis, Netherlands

www. fyforg.uk

Shazhaume Primary School children (who had feared bees) discover that they are very usetul insects although possibly dangerous if not well handled! All the children appreciated the hive products as food and income sources.

Small Hive Beetle found in Portugal

Find Your Feet

Four members of the Sibhulutja Sabomake community group prepare for honey extraction

In September about 120 queens from the USA were imported into Portugal. Two days after the queens were introduced to the colonies the national vet-lab found 2-3 eggs and larvae of the small hive beetle Aethina tumida in the queen cages. The colonies were burned and all ashes and remains buried a metre deep. The soil was disinfected 30 cm deep and 4 m to the front and back of the hives. The beekeeper covered the ground with a transparent plastic foil so beetles emerging from the soil could be trapped and identified. The foil will be kept in place for several months. In my opinion there is a realistic chance to avoid further distribution of the beetle in this way. The EU has stopped all importation of bees from the USA. Queen bees are only allowed to be imported from the 65 countries listed in the EU rules. However, this is restricted to those countries where the small hive beetle is an officially recognised disease/predator.

Dr Wolfgang Ritter, German National Reference Laboratory for Bee Diseases

Beetle versus bee

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the award winning video. 34.80

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Bees for Development Journal

BOOKSHELF - Available from BfD NOW at www.beesfordevelopment.org

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Book Shelf Plants and honeybees: their relationships

David Aston and Sally Bucknall 2004 152 pages Paperback 19.00

(€28.50) Code A455

This book fills a niche not quite occupied by any other on the beekeepers’ bookshelf. It assumes little scientific knowledge from the reader, gently introducing concepts such as taxonomy and the fundamentals of flower structure and of bee biology, and how these relate to the interdependency of bees and flowering plants. There are chapters on each of the products that bees obtain from plants: nectar, pollen, honeydew and propolis.

Also very clear explanations of pollination and fertilisation, and the need for conservation of bee forage. The Annexes usefully include methods for preparing slides to identity pollen grains, together with lists of plant families used by bees, wildflower and grass seed mixtures for different soil types, trees, shrubs, and wildflowers for honeybees.

The botanical information relates to the British Isles. Clearly written and presented, the book is well illustrated with line drawings and 24 excellent colour plates.

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HATTIE ELLIS .

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SWEETN ESS & LIGHT. ray

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2004 290 pages Hardback 17.00 ” :

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A long essay about bees, beekeeping and beekeepers. Skilfully weaving together the

author's research in the subject with anecdotes and with the history and culture surrounding the world of the bee. Definitely a sweet gift for anyone interested to know more of the history of human involvement with bees.

Starting with bees Peter Gordon 2004 96 pages Paperback A5 9.10 (€13.70) Code G155 Written for those who are new to the craft, beekeeping, this book comprehensively describes beekeeping with frame hives and European honeybees. Step-by-step instructions and black and white photographs and illustrations further clarify the techniques. Appendices on bee stings and legislation followed by a glossary complete this useful guide.

Proceedings 9

Starting with

BEES

ei! seal,” _—

af the

.

:

rst European Conferent of Apidology

Proceedings of the First European Conference of

Peter Gordon

Apidology Udine, ttaty

19-23 September 2004 Serr

Ale

Iris Bernardinelli and Norberto Milani (Editors) Hot off the press come these Proceedings of the meeting held in September 2004, in Udine, Italy. The book consists of 250 abstracts of research papers presented at the Conference, and serves as a rapid introduction to who is doing what in European bee research. Topics covered are bee biology, genetics, management, pathology, products, and bees as pollinators.

During the Conference the Association for Bee Research, ‘EurBee' was founded. wish to join, download a membership form at hitp://web.uniud.it/eurbee/ 14

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Bees Deborah Hodge 2004 32 pages Paperback A4 9.80

(€14.70) Code H305

This book is produced in association with the Denver Museum of Nature & Science to

help children discover bees. Full colour illustrations and photographs interspersed with short bursts of text and facts in speech balloons make this enjoyable education. Mostly about honeybees we see a brief introduction to anatomy, life cycle, honey, pollination and ‘bee buddies' (flowers to me and you). One page explains there are at least 25,000 bee species in the world including bumblebees, solitary mining bees, giant mason bees, African cuckoo bees and sweat bees. Fun activities to try are building a bee, honeycomb printing and making flowers.

DVD

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Beekeeping in the Philippines

Horst Wendort 2003 80+ minutes Set of two 2 DVDs 29.70

(€44.50) Code VID31

In BfDJ65 Horst Wendorf described his work on the beekeeping development project in the Mount Kanla-on area of Negros Island in the Philippines. This is comprehensive double DVD account of this project. The introduction explains that in rural areas, one in two families live below the poverty line. Almost all the indigenous tropical forest has n destroyed for seasonal crop cultivation - coconut, coffee, sugar and tobacco. With forests protected there was a need to restore biodiversity and to assist households who depend on the natural resources... beekeeping was high on the list. a

in the Philippines, only Apis cerana can be kept in hives. The annual honey yield per colony of Apis cerana is 4-5 kg per year a over 20 Introduced mellifera honeybees yield kg per colony Apis relatively low yield. and this species was chosen for the project. How the bees were brought to the island, the imported equipment, subsequently renewed by local craftspeople, and training given to the new beekeepers are described.

Of the known indigenous honeybee species

DVD 2 first discusses queen rearing and then harvesting and marketing. This project is similar to many others in that the quantity of locally produced honey is always less than demand. Only honey was a successful product. The beekeepers became content that the pollen they collected was sufficient to feed their bees during the monsoon season. A party featuring The Biak Na Bato Band whose rhythms accompany the whole film, is followed by a solemn chapter on pests and diseases, especially the extensive and costly treatments required against Varroa. In conclusion, prospects and lessons learned from the project close this interesting and thought raising account.

Pollen

-

all packed up and nowhere to go

deline Harley

_vJ4

28 pages Paperback 5.00

(€7.50) Code H135

Madeline Harley is responsible for research on pollen at the UK's Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, with access to eight million plant specimens collected over 150 years.

In this booklet she concisely explains why pollen is such remarkable stuff. While pollen may seem like annoying dust to humans, closer examination reveals a phenomenal range of structural variation in the outer packaging of plants' male reproductive cells.

Pollen strategy - that is the ways in which pollen is transferred from one plant to another, (with the avoidance of self-pollination) is discussed. Finally, an explanation of how those very few pollen grains that escape being eaten by birds or bees or being lost to the wind, arrive at the surface of a compatible plant stigma and achieve their ultimate goal: ovule fertilisation. This is an excellent introduction to pollen, and with a useful glossary.

Also references, diagrams and photographs of pollen grains as shown right.

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“Five Millennia of Beekeeping on your Doorstep

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Lecture Sessions & Scientific Symposia

Workshops & Practical Classes Poster Displays & Competitions The World Honey Show ApiExpo 2005 - over 100 international exhibitors The International Apimondia Village Craft Fair Technical & Scenic Tours

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