Bees for Development Resource Centre

Bees for Development’s new free to access Resource Centre is online!

All our bee and beekeeping publications are available. Designed for beekeepers, bee enthusiasts, development practitioners and academics, you simply need to register to enjoy all of the benefits. The Resource Centre’s key aim is to empower beekeepers and trainers in building a sustainable living.

With thousands of articles, 350+ downloadable PDFs, MP3s, instructional videos and training manuals. Of great importance, the Resource Centre is now home to every edition of Bees for Development Journal.

The Resource Centre is fully optimised to work online or via a mobile device on low-bandwidth connections. Where resources can be downloaded, we have compressed the files as much as possible without losing any of the quality.

Benefits of becoming a registered user

Unlike other organisations we have not put up a paywall: we want good, reliable information about bees to be freely available to everyone. Non-registered users will still have free access to all our resources.

Upon sign-up, registered users gain access to their own personalised dashboard. From there, users can update their profile and contact preferences, see recent additions to the library, view their download history and view our Resource Centre members-only links.

For example, priority access to our newest resources and to our digital noticeboard, where we communicate upcoming (international) courses and events, new beekeeping sector job opportunities and much more.

Registered users will automatically be signed up to the Resource Centre mailing list. Letting us know your topic(s) of interest and location(s) in your profile will help us to ensure you are sent the most relevant information. Joining our mailing list will also ensure that you will be one of the first to receive Bees for Development Journal in advance of it becoming publicly available. Please sign up: resources.beesfordevelopment.org/sign-up/

Who is the Resource Centre for?

NGOs and programme developers

Beekeeping is a viable addition to many livelihood programmes. The materials in our Resource Centre provide a wealth of information which can guide programme developers to design effective, sustainable beekeeping projects. Through using our Resource Centre we hope programme developers are able to promote contextually appropriate beekeeping methods and will avoid placing undue emphasis on beehive donations – as such projects often lead to unmet expectations.

Beekeeper trainers and project managers

Many of our users are members of beekeeping groups, cooperatives or businesses that train other beekeepers. We have tools and resources including guides, posters and training manuals that can help support your beneficiaries.

Beekeepers

Knowledge and skills are a beekeeper’s most crucial assets. We provide effective training pathways and reliable advice to beekeepers around the world who would otherwise have no access to educational resources to keep bees successfully. All beekeepers will be able to benefit from access to our instructional videos and Bees for Development Journal.

Researchers and academics

Our Resource Centre contains an extremely comprehensive wealth of resources of interest to researchers and students. Please be aware that our Reference Collection sign-posts people to articles and resources which are not downloadable from this website but are accessible elsewhere.

What is included?

Collections

We have a huge collection of resources spanning bees, beekeeping, and international development. Resource Centre Users have free access to a wealth of useful and interesting information covering bees, international beekeeping techniques, successful practices to promote and support beekeeping in development, and training. The site is home to over 3,500 resources, which we have carefully collated into collections designed to cater for the informational needs of users of the Resource Centre.

At the heart of our Resource Centre is the Bees for Development Journal Collection which is home to a digital version of all 142 editions, spanning 40 years. Thanks to this digitalisation we have been able to make a further 650 articles accessible to our online readers. Printed versions of Bees for Development Journal are available via our hubs (see page 16), or on the Resource Centre here: https://resources.beesfordevelopment.org/bees-for-development-journal-hubs/

Other Collections include Practical Beekeeping, Bee information and Reference, where users can view and download training manuals, beekeeping and development guides, how-to videos and more.

How to contribute

We welcome articles and short reports on new or improved techniques, information about bees and beekeeping in your country and your events, and comments and responses to articles published in Bees for Development Journal.

Articles to be considered for inclusion in Bees for Development Journal should be 800-1,600 words and accompanied by images. These can be sent by email, as attachments in Word or PDF format, or by post. Please send digital images (as individual jpeg files) at the size they are taken off the camera (images resized for website use are not suitable for printing).