News

BENIN

Beekeeping is a growing activity in Benin. A national policy for beekeeping development is not yet established. There are over 1,800 active beekeepers annually harvesting at least 12 tonnes of honey. Currently support at national level is provided by the PAMF project. This forest project supports 349beekeepers with 2,100 hives made from a variety of materials. I am in charge of Supervising beekeepers on behalf of PAMF and have 45 hives of my own. I am collaborating with NGOs specialised in beekeeping. We are taking a census of beekeepers and will submit a national policy for beekeeping in Benin to the Government.

I look forward to receiving my sponsored subscription to Bees for Development Journal.

Kréwajou Eliab Biaou, Parakou

PAPUA NEW GUINEA

Our Queen Breeders Association organised an Open Day in December 2007. About 300 attended including beekeepers from other provinces. The main reasons were that we had been getting complaints about the quality of the queens being produced and sold, and the increase in queen bee prices - PGK25 (€6; US$9), up by PGKS (€1.2; US$1.8),

I held a second training course on 11-15 February 2008. Of the 26 trainee participants, four were women. Beekeeping is a new concept for women in Papua New Guinea. Thanks to CUSO Volunteers Kathleen Hardie and Peter Cooper who worked with us in 2004 and 2005, many women’s groups and individuals are going into beekeeping.

Materials from the Resource Box we received were given to Henganofi Beekeeping Club who have 50 registered members. They asked me to convey to BFD their appreciation. We held a graduation ceremony on the last day and presented certificates. We are planning another District training event in April.

Tella Loie, Provincial Bee Co-ordinator, Goroka, Eastern Highlands Province

INDIA

TSBV-tolerant Apis cerana

In the 1990s the beekeeping industry in Kerala State was in a shambles following the outbreak of Thai sacbrood virus (TSBV). The sector is now picking up thanks to the scientific intervention of the honey bee research centre at Kerala Agriculture University’s (KAU) College of Agriculture, Vellayini.

According to scientists at the Centre, before 1991, Kerala State contributed more than 50% of the honey produced in India. But with the outbreak of TSBV, nearly 95% of the then exsiting colonies of Indian hive bee Apis cerana indica were wiped out, almost leading to the end of commercial beekeeping in Kerala.

The trend is now reversed. We have more than 400,000 Apis cerana colonies in the State. It is estimated that there were record yields of honey during the last two years — about 4,000 tonnes annually.

KAU scientists headed by Dr Abraham Jacob started work on ways to control TSBV in 1991. They identified the causal organism of TSBV to be an RNA virus. Detailed studies were done by Dr Stephen Devanesan under the guidance of Dr Jacob. Dr Devanesan said the Centre had contributed to the development of TSBV-tolerant nucleus colonies of Apis cerana indica, by selective breeding. These colonies were distributed to beekeepers through Horticorp, the agency of the project to support the beekeeping industry.

T Ramavarman, The Hindu,

21 September 2007

Honey hut

A beekeeper from Punjab has opened a ‘honey hut’ in Shimla, for selling honey and honey based products. “This is our first honey hut. The next outlet will be opened in Chandigarh and we plan to open 70 honey huts across the country. We also sell honey-based products including honey tea, honey coffee, chocolates, cakes and honey-flavoured popcorn. Our Doraha-based honey farms in neighbouring Punjab are spread over 60 acres where we have around 20,000 colonies of honey bees producing high quality honey”, said owner, Jagjit Singh Kapoor.

Source: www.earthtimes.org/articles

VARROA IN NIGERIA

In October 2007 Mike Ukattah of the Beekeepers’ Association of Nigeria Eastern Region, Abia State, contacted BFD with the following concern:

i have been keeping been keeping bees for 10 years and have 30 colonies. My best colony moved into an old hive that I kept in the porch of my house, on 29 August 2004. Since then it became Stronger every year and was my best colony. In April 2007 these bees provided me with 23 litres of honey. A few weeks ago when | sweeping the floor around the | hive, noticed that the bees were dying in great numbers — this was most unusual.

29 September 2007: I discovered tiny reddish-brown mites creeping on some of the bees, mainly the drones. The mites were firmly attached to the thorax and abdomen of the bees and could be seen with the unaided eye. What was once a monster colony has become so weak that visitors to our farm question if the bees are still inside, considering the level of noise that usually emanated from the hive when the bees were strong Yesterday the hive to discover that there was no brood in the brood chamber, no mites and no drones. The combs were neatly arranged but with little incidence of wax moth. All efforts to find the queen proved fruitless, but the females returning from the field were heavily laden with nectar and pollen. Finally, had to remove the super which was half built with dry combs and also three frames of dry combs from the brood area.

4 December 2007: I just returned home after being away for three days and have discovered that my best colony is gone. I opened the hive, cleaned it up and burned all the debris. I guess the colony absconded because of the mites and heavy infestation of wax moth.

21 January 2008: the UK National Bee and confirmed the mites on Mike Ukattah's bees are Varroa and confirmed the presence of Varroa spp in Nigeria.

Articles about Varroa and suggested treatments

can be found on our Web Information Centre atwww.beesfordevelopment.org

Mike Ukattah