Zooming back to Jordan

In Bees for Development Journal 23 we featured Zooming in on Jordan. Dr Nizar Haddad, Co-ordinator of the Bee Research Unit at the National Center for Agriculture Research and Technology Transfer (NCARTT) in Bag'q now provides this update.

Melliferous vegetation

All of Jordan's eco-geographic regions hold rich and diverse resources of wild flora, cultivated plants, fruit trees, and forest trees. Most of these plants provide forage for bees as sources of nectar and pollen. In the Jordan Valley, bees forage mainly on Citrus, the source of light coloured honey, Christ's thorn jujube, Eucalyptus, Syrian thistle and mesquite. In the uplands, fruit trees such as stone fruit, poem fruit, and cultivated crops like legumes and crucifers are the main forage for honeybees. Wild flora, bushes, and shrub comprise the main foraging plants for honeybees in the arid and semi arid region: greenish and tan coloured honeys are produced from these plants.

Beekeeping

According to Ministry of Agricultural Statistics (2003), 65% of hives are located in the north, 25% in the central parts, and 10% in the south of Jordan. The statistics also show that in 2003 the number of beekeepers was over 1,000 with about 60,000 colonies distributed in the categories shown right.

Hives, equipment and production

In 1979, more than 80% of colonies were kept in traditional clay hives, hand-made cylindrical tubes of mud and straw, 66 cm long and 30 cm in diameter internally - the walls are a full 5 cm thick. Honeybees housed in this hive will build comb, rather than relying on removable frames as in frame hives.

Considerable effort has been made in the past two decades to introduce frame hives into Jordan. In 2005 over 98% of bees are kept in frame hives, while 2% are kept by beekeepers who are still following traditional ways.

There is little manufacture of beekeeping equipment and supplies, except for the wooden hive boxes and frames. Most equipment such as honey extractors, ripeners, queen excluders, wax foundation, smokers, and clothes are imported from New Zealand, China, Syria, Europe and the USA.

From 1980 to 1998 honey production ranged between 50 and 200 tonnes per year. The average domestic consumption reached 379 tonnes per year. The Kingdom imports about 282 tonnes a year, which means that domestic production may meet only 20% of national consumption.

Jordanians prefer local honey. They believe that local honey has more medicinal value than imported honey, because of the diversity of Jordan flora. The price of imported honey reaches US$5 per kg, while the price of local honey is US$10-15 per kg.

Category: Hobby beekeeper

- Number of colonies: Less than 10 69%

Category: Part-time beekeeper

- Number of colonies: 10 -25 10%

Category: Full-time beekeeper

- Number of colonies: 25-100 20%

Category: Professional beekeeper

- Number of colonies: 101-1000 9%

Category: Large-scale professional beekeeper with shop and employees

- Number of colonies: More than 1000 1%

Honeybees

The indigenous honeybee is Apis mellifera syriaca which occurs in the eastern Mediterranean region: Jordan, Palestine, Israel, Syria and Lebanon. It is characterised by a bright yellow colour and small size. Apis mellifera syriaca is a nervous bee, and notorious for high defensiveness. For commercial beekeepers there seem to be good practical reasons for replacing Apis mellifera syriaca by less defensive strains, including Italian, Carniolan, Buckfast or Caucasian bees.

Apis mellifera syriaca

As a bee of the dry-hot regions, it is much better adapted to survive extreme summer temperatures without a small honey flow, and adjusts its brood pattern showing a depression between the spring and autumn maxima. The Syrian honeybee shows more defensive behaviour against the parasitic mite Varroa destructor and is better adapted to withstand attacks from Vespa orientalis. Apis mellifera syriaca is a good opportunity for study, since research done on the biology, behaviour, and genetics of this honeybee are very limited. Although more than half a century of foreign bee importation has taken place, it might not be too late to find pure or almost pure Apis mellifera syriaca. Therefore the Bee Research Unit (NCARTT) started intensive investigations in co-operation with the Institut fur Bienenkunde in Germany, to find Apis mellifera syriaca and establish a gene bank apiary for this local race, having in mind that the species of today might be the solution of problems tomorrow. The results were that the Jordanian samples were the closest in the Middle East to the reference samples collected in 1952 by Brother Adam. This is the first bank for Apis mellifera syriaca in the Middle East where queens are mated in natural flights and with instrumentally inseminated mother queens in order to serve as a resource for the future.

Beekeeping Department

The Ministry of Agriculture has a Beekeeping Department responsible for import and export regulations and the yearly statistics, and, in co-operation with Extension Services, for training and supporting beekeepers.

Bee Research Unit

Three years ago NCARTT founded the Bee Research Unit which is responsible for conducting basic and applied research and transferring new technologies to localbeekeepers.

Beekeeping development

The Bee Research Unit has distributed hives and helped in the establishment of new apiaries, whose income is used to support poor families. There is also the work of developing income for women in rural areas - many workshops and training programmes for women are conducted yearly.

Honeybee diseases

American foulbrood Paenibacillus larvae, European foulbrood Melissococcus pluton, Acarapis spp. In certain areas the symptoms of Nosema apis and viral diseases might be present but there has been no survey.

Honeybee pests and predators

Wax moth Galleria mellonella, oriental hornet Vespa orientalis, and Varroa destructor are the main pests and predators. Poisoning of bees by pesticides remains a very serious problem for beekeepers, especially in the Jordan Valley.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Ryiadh Al-Najada and all other Bee Research Unit staff at NCARTT.

For further information please visit:

www.ncartt.gov.jo or www.beekeeping.8k.com.