GOING GREEN
Cape Town’s own local honey. “The project will combine food security with entrepreneurship and ecotourism for local and international visitors discovering the worldunique Apis mellifera capensis,” says Dominique. Feed the Bees! The trendy hobby of keeping bees could be bad for them. Go figure! British scientists at the University of Sussex have claimed that urban beekeepers who set up hives in cities could be harming honey bees, with city bees running the risk of starvation. The reason for this, according to the scientists, is that bees living in city hives cannot find enough flowers to feed on locally and can end up sick or starving to death. They recommend that city dwellers wanting to help honeybees plant their favourite flowers to feed on.
The aim of the Urban Beekeeping Project is to extend the benefits of beekeeping to historically disadvantaged people throughout greater Cape Town. Beekeeping has become a popular pastime among people in greater London. Professor Francis Ratnieks and Dr Karin Alton from the Laboratory of Apiculture and Social Insects (LASI) at the University of Sussex note that most of the promotion of beekeeping is aimed at urban areas, especially London . Data from BeeBase, a register of apiaries maintained by the United Kingdom’s National Bee Unit, showed that, in five years from 2008 to 2013, the number of beekeepers in Greater London tripled from 464 to 1 237, and to over 3 500 hives. There are about 10 hives in every square kilometre of London compared with one hive per hectare across England as a whole. Among the reasons cited by scientists for the decline in honeybees and wild bees in the United Kingdom is loss of flowers and habitat. Professor Ratnieks says: “In the UK, 75 per cent of the total land is now agricultural, so the lack of flowers is a major problem for our bees.” Winnie the Pooh Would Be Pleased There are many reasons to promote the production of honey. In the Western Cape in South Africa, which is a fruitgrowing region generating significant export earnings from deciduous fruit, honeybees are vital as pollinators. Yet, this opportunity has not been fully utilised in terms of producing honey. “Production does not satisfy current domestic demand, and honey is therefore routinely imported, up to 2,000 tons per annum,” says Dominique. There is also great scope for increasing demand by promoting the benefits of hive products.
Money in Honey As the Royal Beekeeper to Charles II said: “A bee is an exquisite chemist.” It is quite remarkable that, with some training, South African beekeepers can work in harmony with these industrious creatures to generate a fair income for themselves. By the fifth year of production and with 40 hives, aspiring beekeepers should generate a return of R74 000 per annum. Yet, South Africa “currently imports more than 3 500 tons of honey per annum, plus a couple of hundred tons of beeswax for cosmetic purposes,” Dominique says. All South Africa’s honey could be produced locally. The reason for importing is due to a shortage of trained bee farmers. By comparison, East Africa produces and exports up to 100 000 tons of honey per annum. “Kenya for example is only a third of the size of South Africa and has large semi-arid parts similar to us, but their beekeeping industry plans to triple its honey and beeswax production in the next few years,” Dominque confirms. The present value of the Turkish bee industry is over R2 billion a year, plus pollination. Not a figure to be scoffed at! We Are in Bees-iness Dominique has done his sums, using figures from farming-industry bodies: In South Africa, there are 40 000 commercial farmers plus 250 000 emerging and traditional farmers, and 500 000 farm workers who could be potential bee farmers. If only 1% (7 900) were to be involved in beekeeping, each one looking after 10 hives, it would result in 79 000 active hives each producing 20 kg of honey per year, which amounts to 1 580 tons of honey per year, not to mention the other products and services related to beekeeping. There are many value-added products and services to build with, for example: beeswax, pollen, propolis, and pollination services. This is not a bad deal considering the low investment and the long-term benefits, as well as providing thousands of people, especially those in rural areas, with a foothold in the economy. Sources: Cape Times, ‘Honey bees to the rescue’, 3 June 2014; Daily Mail, 14 August 2013