Nature-based Beekeeping - issues arising

Janet Lowore PhD, Programme Manager at Bees for Development

Why does Bees for Development particularly advocate Nature-based Beekeeping in developing nations?

Put simply, Nature-based Beekeeping systems are accessible to many people who need to earn a living from bees, because Nature-based Beekeeping relies more strongly on freely available natural materials and natural processes, and less heavily on capital. For people living in poverty, lack of capital is a huge barrier to participation, both to beekeeping, as well as to many other potentially lucrative livelihood activities. However, our reasons are far more complicated than that!

In the previous joint edition of Bees for Development Journal and Natural Bee Husbandry Magazine, we presented our case for Nature-based Beekeeping. In addition to that article, we are preparing a short video explaining this approach. We are currently testing the video with a range of stakeholders, to gain their feedback, and in this and subsequent articles we will address some of the most interesting and challenging feedback points we have received, concerning our article and the video.

Comments we have received:

Please explain why ‘modern’ hives do not work. You tell us about the advantages of traditional hives, but you do not explain why countries which rely most heavily on traditional hives are not amongst the top honey producers in the world.

Why do frame hives fail in remote areas?

How can local-style methods be improved?

Does the clay and cow dung mixture used to smear basket hives contaminate the honey and beeswax? Does honey harvested from local-style hives meet international quality standards?

I would like to see more evidence of Nature-based Beekeeping working at scale.

In this article, Janet will address the first feedback point, i.e., why we say that ‘modern’ hives do not work.

Let us first examine the wording of the comment. Use of the term modern for bee hives is inappropriate: no serious discussion about beekeeping technology should use the term ‘modern’, which is imprecise and subjective. It hints, imperfectly, at when a particular hive was invented rather than describing its design features. And when something was invented has little bearing on its suitability for the context. It is much better to describe a beehive by its design features. Please let us describe bee hives by their design (or designer). It is for these same reasons that we do not use the term traditional – as this term also refers to a time or culture, rather than design feature.

Why do ‘modern’ hives not work? Of course they do work – according to what beekeepers want in some places, yet they are not suitable for all bees or all situations.

All beehives – be they top-bar, frame, horizontal, vertical, made of sawn wood, hewn wood or straw – have pros and cons. There can be no such thing as the ‘perfect’ beehive because bees differ in their biology and behaviour and people have differing requirements, preferences and resources available to them.

Just think about the innovative Flow Hive – clever design yes, but not suitable for everyone, everywhere. The suitability of a beehive for any given situation – is determined by social, cultural, economic and ecological criteria, with some beehive types working best in some circumstances and some in others. Frame hives have been given, pushed, donated, promoted, sanctioned and encouraged across rural Africa – yet adoption rates remain low. There are multiple, interacting reasons for these low adoption rates and it would serve the industry well if we unravelled and understood these reasons, rather than blindly pushing a technology where it is ill-suited – and wasting a lot of money.

Frame hives are ingenious, yet they are not perfect in every circumstance. Think about other technologies. In some places radio is a better medium for transmitting information than TV, why? In some places motorbikes are better means of transport than saloon cars, why? In some places, solar-powered irrigation pumps are better than petrol engine powered irrigation pumps, why?

So, let us ask this question properly. Why, despite being donated in their millions in developing countries are frame hives not well adopted by beekeepers? The reasons are not the same everywhere and they intersect – so writing a simple list is just not possible. In this article we can only begin to answer:

Economic reasons

One simple explanation is that frame hives are too expensive. If a poor person has a spare US $50 they will have many more pressing and rationale expenditures to make than buying a frame hive. Poor people do not have the luxury of spending to accumulate – they need to buy food, school uniforms, medicines, fertiliser, to fix the roof, to pay taxes, to buy tools. And if they did have the luxury of spending to accumulate there are many more accessible, less risky and more profitable ways of spending US$ 50 than on a frame hive. Buying tomatoes where they are cheap and selling them in town, making and selling food on market day, becoming a mobile phone credit vendor or buying some tools and fixing bicycles. All easier ways of turning a profit on US$ 50. Spending money on frame hives is something rich people might do because they can afford it and can afford to take the risk. They might get their money back, they might not. A poor person just will not do this.

Please note that ‘not spending money on a frame hive’ is not the same as ‘not investing in beekeeping’. A poor person can very easily invest in beekeeping for nothing at all. By making their own hive using locally available cheap or free materials.

Some people have been spared the need to buy a frame hive by being given one – but in interests of reaching more people, most donor-funded projects would rather give one hive each to ten people, than ten hives to one person. We have seen countless examples of donor-funded projects trying hard to reach even more people by donating hives to groups –a group of twenty people being given ten hives. Not enough!!! One beehive (let alone half a beehive) is never enough.

The argument that a person can make enough money from their one donated hive to buy another one is flawed. It does not happen! If your average poor person (we will generalise for a moment) is given one frame hive and is fortunate enough to make US$ 50 profit in their first year of beekeeping – what are they going to spend this US$ 50 on? Those items mentioned above or many, many other alternatives before a frame hive. And this assumes that they make US$ 50. There are many reasons why this might not happen at all. So in summary most of the rural poor cannot afford to buy frame hives, and those that receive them in donations use them, and may or may not earn from them, but are extremely unlikely to buy another one. They are just too expensive given (a) there are other less risky things you can spend US$ 50 on and (b) there are cheaper way to invest in beekeeping. So frame hives are not widely adopted because of economic reasons.

Economic reasons are only the beginning of the story. In this article we touched on some further ideas and assumptions – we mentioned risk and we mentioned that a person who receives a frame hive as a donation, might not make much money from it at all. Why not?

I certainly agree with the comments above, understanding that an essential part of Bees for Development’s work is to aid the economy of the groups with which it is involved; however, there are other issues which they hope to address in future editions of the magazine. As for Natural Bee Husbandry’s aims, economy is not likely to be a problem. The focus is on supplying bees with sustainable homes that adequately meet the colony’s full needs as nature intended, and which since the dawn of time have allowed them to survive with little interference from man. This being the case, the hives adopted for use in the developed world have been influenced by several of those that have been promoted by Bees for Development in their programmes, as well, of course, those from previous centuries within each of their own geographic regions.

Some of the most important principles of sustainable and bee-friendly beekeeping

Bees able to build their combs in the most natural way as possible

Homes provided for bees are of the right volume, weatherproof, give protection from enemies, and well-insulated from extremes of heat and cold

Homes able to be made easily and cheaply from natural, sustainable materials, preferably found locally

Bees interfered with as little as possible

Bees not treated with chemical agents against pests and diseases

Plenty of natural stores are left for the colonies so that they can survive during droughts and winters

A skep: an ideal home for bees for thousands of years. If given shelter from adverse weather conditions, the colonies within them should thrive.

Given a chance, a gap between frames, will allow the beekeepers see how well comb can be constructed when the bees are given the freedom to do so.

The first time I saw a colony in the wild with its beautifully constructed nest, I always considered it to be a shame that bees are confined within frames in modern hives and not allowed to build the nest in the ways they have for millennia.

Top bar-hives allow the bees to produce beautiful combs which can also be removed easily from the hive if need be.