Whoa. It has been a long time since I've posted anything on here. Unfortunately I don't have much time for a full update, so I'm posting an article that I recently wrote about beekeeping for our technical exchange newsletter. Enjoy!
When approaching a beehive something in your most basic,
animalistic biology tells you this isn’t good idea. Opening the lid, that voice
gets louder, screaming at you to stop. It’s understandable. Bees can be dangerous.
Yet even with thousands of bees around, a larger part of you, the part of you
that collected bugs as a child takes over and thinks, “ Wow! This is awesome.”
Somehow at that moment your fight or flight impulse disappears and all that’s
left is clarity and an amazing job to do.
Yet two short years ago when applying for Peace Corps,
beekeeping was the last thing I wanted to do. I’d never even been stung by a
bee and couldn’t imagine any circumstance that would make opening a beehive
appealing. Turns out you change your mind pretty quickly after six months of
sitting at site doing nothing. Suddenly beekeeping didn’t sound like a
ludicrous idea only done by people of questionable sanity. Now it was my
project, my baby, and my reason for staying in Guinea.
At this point you might be thinking, “that’s all well and
good for you, but why is beekeeping even important to PC Guinea?” To the
skeptics out there: if your site has agriculture or any flowering plants bees
play a key role in your community.
Often unseen and under-appreciated bees make sure we get to enjoy
mangoes, cashews, oranges, and countless other fruits and vegetables. As
Einstein famously said, “If bees let the
planet, man would have 3-5 years left.” Wow.
While bees naturally and plentifully exist in Guinea, few
Guineans actually practice beekeeping. The majority of people who interact with
bees do so either as honey hunters or beehavers. Honey hunters are folks who search out naturally occurring
hives and take the honey. One step
above honey hunting is beehaving—providing bees with a protective man-made
structure where the colony can live but not doing any active hive
management. These hives are made
from a variety of materials including woven grass, hollow tree trunks, gourds,
etc. Beehavers provide the
bees protection as a means to facilitate future honey harvests.
While both practices are successful in harvesting honey,
they can have detrimental impacts.
During harvest, hives are traditionally subdued by lighting a smoky fire
below the hive. This calms the bees somewhat, but when the harvest is complete
and angry bees are swarming, the fire may be left burning while harvesters flee
to safety. Unattended these can
turn into devastatingly large brush fires. Traditional harvesting methods may collapse entire colonies
by destroying brood comb/ killing the queen or lead to bees abandoning the
hive.
So now I’m sure you want to know how PCV’s can get involved.
We can assist local honey hunters and beehavers in adapting
their practices to become beekeepers.
The main difference being that beekeepers possess enough understanding
of bee biology and organization to work
with and actively manage bees. Making the transition doesn’t require large
financial investments, just training and practical application such as tweaking
traditional hive designs to allow greater colony management and monitoring. For
example, you might add top bars to a woven grass hive or make protective
beekeeping suits from old rice sacks.
But even if getting down and dirty with bees isn’t your
thing it’s still possible to work with local bee workers. Help increase honey
quality and profitability by teaching local harvesters how to filter honey and
recognize the differences between good and bad quality honey. If you’re feeling
more ambitious, why not transform comb that would otherwise be thrown away into
profit. It’s easy to purify wax and transform it into a variety of products
including: candles, body butter, soap, or lip gloss. All are fun projects,
great souvenirs to bring home, and possible to make with ingredients available
at your local market.
Hopefully I’ve managed to convince a few of you that
beekeeping would be an awesome project. If you want to learn more about bees
pick up a copy of “Small-scale Beekeeping” (available at your regional house in
both French and English) or feel free to contact me with any questions,
concerns, or to get several GB’s of beekeeping materials. Be sure to apply to
the upcoming beekeeping training, tentatively scheduled for June 16-20. Till
next time, keep an eye on your local pollinators.
