Advantages
of beekeeping to a rural community.
Rural village life in tropical
Africa revolves around subsistence level farming. Subsistence farming is subject
to high risk factors. Crops are not irrigated and rely on rains. Livestock
are not inoculated, and rely on resistance to disease. If a natural disaster
such as drought occurs, the subsistence level fails leading to widespread
suffering. We propose to diversify the traditional farming practices by promoting
commercial apiculture. This will inject cash into the economy, allowing savings
accumulation, but more importantly it will alleviate the pressure on the environment.
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| Image 1.A bee pollinating
a Casava flower, a subsistance crop found in Mozambique. |
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| Image2. Capped honey ready
to be harvested as a cash crop, so that the utilisarion of this renewable
resource can be realised. |
By
training in basic apiculture the rural community not only develops a skill,
but also a method of providing family nutrition. Bees are found wild in most
of tropical Africa, and are well adapted to these conditions. A general fear
is found among most people concerning apiculture. Thus people need to be educated
about bees and their products, and on how to tap this naturally occurring resource
on a sustainable and profitable basis. Once a person is trained in basic colony
management a number of advantages are seen. The first is as an alternate sustainable
food source to supplement
the traditional diet. This has further spin-offs due to the nutritional health
properties of raw honey.Honey has natural antibiotics, which alleviate health
problems; it is rich in vitamins and minerals. The sweetening effect is prized,
as sugar is often highly priced and difficult to obtain. The generation of
income from the selling of excess honey and wax boosts the poor economies
found in these areas. Honey is often sought after as a luxury item, and has
considerable bartering weight in the poorer rural areas. Honey and wax are
high value per mass products, and therefore attractive as cash crops when
compared to other crops such as grain or vegetables, and have a much longer
shelf life. This longer shelf life is particularly useful to the communities
as it helps families through none harvest periods, when cash crops are not
available.
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| Image 3.Explaining the outline
and benifitts of the project to benificiaries in Maganja de Costa
area, Mozambique |
The
traditional method of bee keeping found in tropical Africa at present is in
bark or log hives. These are constructed from the trunk bark of mature trees
of mainly Julbernardia and Brachystegia trees. These are the main constituent
tree species of the "Miombo" or Brachystegia woodland savannah, which previously
covered most of east Africa from Mozambique to Ethiopia. Julbernardia is also
a pioneer woodland species in the Sahel of West Africa. These species are both
valuable for their nectar and hardwood timber. When the trees are ring-barked
they die, as the cambium is exposed and dries out. Bark hives have a life span
of two years average before they need replacing. A full-grown tree yields an
average of 1.7 hives! These species are some of the finest honey sources in
the world. Their timbers are valuable as construction hardwood, causing an obvious
conflict between beekeeping and forestry, as opposed to the symbiotic relationship
that was the norm in these ecosystems. It is estimated that there are between
200,000 and 250,000 bark hives in Mozambique. This means that up to 60,000 fine
timber trees are being ringbarked and destroyed each year in the country for
only a short-term advantage.
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| Image 4. A traditional bark hive beeing
made from the bark of a tree. |
Naturally the beekeeper always chooses
the tallest, straightest tree available. The beekeepers are also destroying
the major floral source of their end product. It is estimated that there are
more than two million bark hives in Mozambique, so 360,000 full-grown trees
per annum are required to fund this number of hives! Thus the manufacture
of this type of hive by traditional beekeepers is contributing to the loss
of hardwood timber, honey and soil binding root systems vital for erosion
prevention on the acid heavily leached tropical laterite soils.
The destruction of the fire-climax
open forest was the major factor in the Ethiopian famine, due to the erosion
of the arable topsoil.Controlled beekeeping practices in synthetic, durable
horizontal hives will minimize these problems. By training rural beekeepers
the incidence of bush fires will decrease. The traditional method of stealing
honey from a wild swarm involves smoking the bees using a torch made from
dry twigs and green leaves tied together in a bundle. Once the honey has been
removed this smouldering material is abandoned, often causing run away fires.
With the use of a smoker given to a trained beekeeper there is no possibility
of fires occurring because the combustible material is all contained within
the chamber of the smoker. This is then taken home and not left smoldering
in the bush. The community will appreciate the natural trees when they are
taught that the trees are indirectly providing an income through the bees,
and thus worthy of better protection. The bee products of honey and wax can
be cleaned labor intensively, using mainly solar power, leading to further
employment opportunities. Beehives, protective clothing, and bee working tools
(hive tools, smokers, gloves etc.) can be made or assembled locally in small
factories. Beneficiating bee products such as wax into candles and ornaments
is also labor intensive and solar powered. Thus apiculture has potential in
areas where electrical power is not available. The important factor is to
demonstrate to the people that the horizontal hive is a viable alternate to
bark hives. It will increase honey production by preserving their bee colonies
for a sustainable yield, and will give them a source of cash income. It will
boost the status of the community as conservationist beekeepers. It will help
save their environment. There are several indirect spin-offs from apiculture
to the communities. Each hive requires 25 movable wooden frames for the bees
to build their comb, so honey can be harvested cleanly and efficiently. Each
pilot project requires 250,000 frames alone, with the number increasing as
further development into the villages occurs. This will require a wood working
and assembling factory, creating employment to a number of people. The factory
will not only be confined to the production of bee equipment but can be used
to create other products that may be in demand for the community. Land mine
notice. In areas landmined from previous wars the only harvest from the forest
is honey and wax, as bees will penetrate such forest up to 5 kilometers beyond
the mined road edges, or 75 square kilometers. This gives the bee farmer a
vast untapped hinterland. When there is a surplus of hive products these are
easily transported to honey factories, where they can be processed to international
standards using solar power alone, plus a larger than normal labour force
drawn from the subsistence community. We have developed some simple solar
powered equipment that can beneficiate all hive products to full organic world
requirements.
