News around the World

BULGARIA

A national programme for the development of beekeeping was presented on 10 February in Sofia's Inter-Expo Centre. In the Orthodox Church, 10 February marks St Haralampii's Day - St Haralampii is believed to have discovered honey's healing powers. The new programme was developed by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forests in co-operation with the German Association for Technical Partnerships and Bulgarian beekeeping organisations. Working groups discussed natural resources, bee breeding technologies and bee protection, as well as honey production, marketing and product safety. The programme aims to help Bulgaria derive maximum benefit from the funds, which are expected to be granted for developing the bee breeding sector after the country's entry into the EU. Last year the EU enforced new regulations to allow member countries to receive financial support after presenting three-year national development programmes. In 2004, Bulgaria exported 5,620 tonnes of honey, 70% of which flowed into the EU market.

Source: Apis-UK February 2005

ETHIOPIA

Alage Agricultural, Vocational, Technical and Training College accommodates 5,000 students and has 7,000 ha of land. There are five beekeeping stations with modern buildings and we have 600 frame hives, reports Selman Nigusu, Head of the Beekeeping and Training Centre. The picture shows us making low-cost clay hives which have been tested by the College. The hive takes standard Langstroth hive frames and top-bars can be also used. The hive is 108 cm long by 48 cm wide and 21 cm deep. The annual honey yield - in terms of both quality and quantity - is near to those of frame hives.

DR CONGO

We held a workshop on how to divide a colony to form two. Twenty beekeepers attended and expressed their satisfaction to solve the problem of swarm rarity. 100 women beekeepers

who received a loan through micro credit schemes have started to reimburse the loan (eight litres of honey), equivalent in value to one hive. Gracia Matondo, Salvation Army Development Officer, Kinshasa Gombe.

GHANA

Mr T A Quaye, Director of Friends of Bee Enterprise in Kumasi sent in this picture of a training session held in February for the northern sector of the Ghanaian Army. The officers are learning how to bait hives, to attract passing swarms or colonies.

IRAN

In the past 11 months 28,500 tonnes of honey were produced in Iran, reported Reza Torkashvand, General Director of Poultry and Beekeeping in the Ministry of Agricultural Jihad. There are currently 2.7 million honeybee colonies in the country, each colony producing about 12 kg of honey. Iran stands 11th in the world table of honey producers, with 2.2% of total world output.

Source: MehrNews.com - Tehran, Iran, 2 March 2005 in FAO NWFP-Digest-L 3/05

IRAQ

Rebuilding beekeeping

The Kurds like to say that their only friends are the mountains. Beekeeper Abdulrahman Senduri thinks the same could be said about honeybees, "Banging a piece of metal next to a hive is enough to get the bees to fly off into the hills. Imagine the state of the bee population in 1991, when Saddam put down the Kurdish rebellion. The hives were all burned or smashed, and the sky was black with bees, fleeing north towards Turkey".

A part of rural life in the northern Iraqi mountains for thousands of years, honey production had been no less devastated by the Baathist campaigns of 1976 and 1988. Then, farmers had done their best to start again, but, after 1991, with the Kurdish region on the brink of starvation, they had more pressing concerns.

The job of rebuilding the beekeeping industry in Dahuk fell largely on the American NGO, Concern4Kids (C4K). Country Director Robert Anderson said, "We were helping in the reconstruction of villages in the Matin mountains, just south of the Turkish border. Villagers were happy to be back, but they were struggling and had a poor diet".

There was no apparent answer where to find bees until a Turkish Kurdish smuggler arrived with a mule laden with two hives full of bees. "He was very poor, and wanted US$15 for the hives: we offered a lot more. The man had 48 more hives in Turkey. Two by two, he brought them, braving minefields along the border", remembers Anderson.

Many of the villagers had no experience of bees and needed training. This job fell to men like Abdulrahman Senduri, who had studied agriculture in Baghdad in the early 1970s. Drafted in by C4K, he toured villages north of Dahuk, teaching farmers how to divide colonies, and to recognise the signs of parasitic infestation.

C4K had to leave Dahuk for a year in 1996 when Kurdish leader Mustafa Barzani invited the Iraqi army in to fight off forces from rival Kurdistan. C4K returned to find many hives had been stolen and sold by a former local employee. Despite such setbacks, beekeeping is once again widespread.

There are C4K hives in Mergesur, four hours by road from Dahuk. Further west other groups, including FAO, have also sponsored honey production. Hasan Hamed Amin bought 40 hives in 1996, "We now have 300 hives, and honey has become our surest way of making money".

Mr Senduri said, "Beekeeping is not a job for fools, but the villagers were eager to learn. My biggest battle was persuading them not to feed sugar to the bees all year round. It is easy, but it makes the bees lazy, and the honey produced is no good". A jar of locallyproduced, almond flower honey costs US$9. Customers took their time to accept a higher price, but now sales are good. With the honey on its way to conquering the local market, C4K are planning export: first stop Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

Source: IRINNews.org

IRIN (Integrated Regional Information Networks) - a humanitarian news agency covering sub-Saharan Africa, eight countries in central Asia as well as Iraq.

Abdulrahman Senduri points out the queen in one of his new colonies

PHILIPPINES

Curiosity pays

This is how Florante Siapno, of Lumacao village near Manila, explains how he came to produce an organic red wine from honey. Mr Siapno has been keeping bees for over 25 years and considers the honey wine as one of his greatest and sweetest achievements.

He started producing his wine after attending an advanced training course on honeybee culture and product development at the University of the Philippines in Los Baños. Participants were encouraged to look for products apart from the usual honey, wax and pollen. The result is an organic wine that is medicinal and highly nutritious. Made of honey, water used to wash combs, calamansi and yeast, the wine boasts a very low alcohol at 2.5% and carries no expiration date. The wine is made to order and costs P250 per litre. (€1 = P71; US$1 = P54.16)

Mr Siapno says that the wine is so far his best and most profitable product, although he has also done well with his original products. He explained that the best thing about honeybee products is that demand for them is always high. Honey is popular in the market and sells for P150 per litre. Honey is also a sought-after flavour for paediatric drugs. Beeswax is usually made into first-class candles for Metro Manila buyers. The wax sells at P1,500 per kg. Pollen from honeybees Apis cerana and stingless bees Trigona sp, is the main ingredient for making certain medicines.

Source: FAO NWFP-Digest-L 3/05