News

AZERBAIJAN

Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev has Signed a decree on the application of the Law on Beekeeping. According to the decree, the Cabinet of Ministers shall, within two months, prepare proposals and submit to the Head of State to bring existing laws inline with the Law on Beekeeping. Rules will be prepared for amateur and professional beekeepers and sanitary-veterinary passports issued for apiaries.

Source: WWW.Wap.apa.az

BULGARIA

Plamen Ivanov, Chairman of the National Beekeepers’ Union said that 38,000 beekeepers are ready to mount a protest and that every Bulgarian who eats honey will support them. “Beekeepers in Bulgaria are in a difficult situation: they do not receive subsidies for hives or colonies even though beekeeping is essential for agricultural development. A major problem is retailers importing honey and selling it at a low price.

Bulgaria has had traditions in honey production since 1911, but now the average age for beekeepers is 66 and young people are not willing to take on beekeeping”, Ivanov said.

Desislava Antova, Focus News Agency

Fiji

Despite the recent spate of unfavourable weather in the country (see BfDJ 90), honey production has been good. National Co-ordinator for Apiculture, Kamal Prasad, said production from January-February was not affected by the downpour, except for areas that were prone to flooding. Prasad said: “Ten tonnes of honey harvested from parts of Rakiraki and Ba are ready for market. Even though the majority of bee farmers were affected, it good weather conditions prevail, we can expect a good harvest for the year.”

The Ministry of Primary Industries is embarking on a rehabilitation programme from which it hopes to recover 40-50% of the production affected by the January floods.

Source: Fiji Daily Post

INDIA

Beekeeping is popular in Dhanchaur and Dhikura village development committees (VDC). Farmers have taken up beekeeping because it requires little investment and provides high returns. In total the farmers earn about INR5 million (US$105,000:€73,310) each year selling honey. Pitamber Bhusal,

Chief of the VDC, says the honey is exported to parts of Nepal including Dang, Butwal, Sindhikharka and Kathmandu. The District Agriculture Development Office provided a concession in the form of hives to the farmers. Honey production has doubled: localfarmer Suprakash Ghimire said that he earns INR100,000 (US$2,100;€1,470) from his 20 colonies. The honey is sold at INR300 (US$6.3;€4.4) per kg. On average, each house in Dhanchaur has two or three hives of Apis cerana honey bees.

Source:www.kantipuronline.com/kolnews

NEPAL

Honey in Nepal: approach, strategy and intervention for subsector promotion by Dr Surendra Raj Joshi has been published by GTZ German Technical Cooperation/Private Sector Promotion-Rural Finance Nepal. BfD has some copies fordistribution in Resource Boxes. The book is also available in PDF format to download from the Information Portal at

www.beesfordevelopment.org

RWANDA

In recent years Rwanda has experienced deforestation, leading to depleted biodiversity, erosion and landslides. The Tree Seedling Production Project funded by International Tree Foundation distributes a mixture of forestry, fruit and agro-forestry tree seedlings to people who use them on their land, replant forests, and prevent encroachment of the remaining forests. The Project has set up nurseries over several districts of Rwanda and produces tree seedlings on a large scale. Local community members give their labour to build the tree nurseries, transport manure, transplant, water and care for seedlings. The fruit of trees, such as Moringa sp (see Trees Bees Use next page), help children recover from Kwashiorkor - a disease caused by malnutrition. Calliandra sp is a good source of fuel wood, animal fodder, increases soil fertility, and provides nectar for bees.

A network of 13 nurseries has been established across four dioceses in southern Rwanda. Each nursery produces about 20,000 saplings. The project is managed by The Rural Development Inter-Diocesan Service (RDIS).

Alice Malaiperuman, Overseas Co-ordinator International Tree Foundation, UK

www. internationaltreefoundation.org

SOUTH AFRICA

Preliminary survey results of bee colonies point to the unabated spread of American foulbrood (AFB) throughout the Western Cape and beyond. Early results showed that over 80% of the 45 samples tested came back positive for the disease. Officials are still waiting for more than 450 samples to be tested. "It is looking increasingly unlikely that eradication and containment will be possible and that we have a region wide, even countrywide, problem," said Mike Allsopp, Head of Honey Bee Research with the Agricultural Research Centre (ARC) in Stellenbosch.

The search for the disease in all of the Western Cape and a part of the Eastern Cape is being conducted by the Department of Agriculture in partnership with the ARC and the South African Bee Industry Organisation (SABIO). Chairman of SABIO, John Moodie, said: "The decision we have to make is whether to continue with the eradication process. Burning infected hives is considered the best way to stop the spread of AFB and we estimate that 200 colonies with AFB have been destroyed so far.”

Allsopp said that eradication is only a reasonable response if the infection rate is under 60%, otherwise, the economic and environmental ramifications of destroying all those colonies are too great. The rapid spread of AFB, which was found in South Africa in February 2009 (see BfDJ 97) threatens more than just the honey-producing industry.

Moodie said that up to ZAR 2.10 billion (US$0.27 billion; €0.19 billion) worth of production in the local deciduous fruit market could be at risk following the AFB outbreak.

This is a quarter of the ZAR 8.50 billion (US$1.10 billion; €0.77 billion) worth of the top six deciduous fruits that South Africa exported last year. The ZAR 2.10 billion (US$0.27 billion; €0.19 billion) figure is a 2007 estimate by the ARC's Plant Protection Institute on the value added by honey bees in the pollination of local deciduous fruits, or how much it would cost to pollinate the deciduous fruit crop by hand. More than 60% of a local beekeeper's income was from the money made from hiring colonies to pollinate Crops.

Chris Faure, Chairman of the Deciduous Fruit Producers Trust, said the local industry was concerned about the outbreak of the disease. "If the outbreak gets worse then the deciduous fruit industry is going to be affected," he added. Plums and apricots, particularly, need bees for pollination. The ARC also included value that local bees add in pollinating berries, nuts, tropical fruit, field crops, oilseed crops, vegetables and seed production. Cherries, most deciduous fruit, nuts, onions, sunflower seeds and vegetables all relied on bees for pollination.

Source: Matthew Richmond, Cape Times

www.iol.co.za and www. busrep.co.za

ZIMBABWE

Mrs Ndlovu’s family honey tasting at the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair held in Bulawayo in April 2009. Mr H H Mandizvidza (wearing blue shirt) a BfD Journal reader for over 20 years, arranged the display and tasting opportunity and estimates 1.000 people attended the event.