Swarms from unknown lands

Bees colonize empty hives.

Top bars are considered as the mondern hives because they simplify beekeeping actvities right from manual colonisation, insepction to havesting. They also yield much more honey compared to traditional hives.

Colonising topbars has been the most tricky activity in beekeeping, whereby bees do not easily colonise them by themselves though they are easy to colonise using colony split method (manually).

besides colonization, they also build combs across the bars! WBA members have learned and tried a lot of tricks and ideas to solve some drawbacks like this.

Recently, Esau one of the beekeepers of WBA used honey to bait bees to colonize his topbars hives (In fact these hives had stayed empty for the last 13months).

He soak a piece of heavy cotton cloth into honey which he hung in one of his 3 empty hives as a new idea to bait bees. 

Note: He had tried baiting bees using wax starter strips and smoking propolis, baiting grass in the hives before but none attracted bees to colonize the hives!

Fortunately within 4 days, a swarm of bees had already occupied his hive!

He didn't stop, he did the same trick to 2 more empty hives and they also got colonized within almost the same dates!

 He thereafter, shared the new trick to other members where 6 out of 17 members who tried the same trick on their hives have sucessfully got some of their empty hives (1-3hives) colonised in just a period of 1 month!

This is amazing and everyone is asking where do these bees come from to colonise the new empty topbar hives.

Of course log hives can not last long with getting colonized since bees are more familiar with them than more modified hive structures like topbar hives.

 WBA members scheduled April 2014 as the next season for spliting colonises to get new colonises for empty hives.

Thanks for such an interesting simple trick!

African bees!

Is the African bee worth keeping?

In recent years, however, a number of private enthusiasts have begun working with the tropical honeybee (Apis mellifera adansonii), better adapted to African ecological conditions. Although this local honeybee does tend to be aggressive, it has the considerable advantage of producing several honey crops a year. It gathers its own food all the time. There is little or no need to feed it. This contrasts with temperate-zone bees which only work between six and nine months a year. Colonies are then over-wintered (kept out of the cold) and are fed with sugar or corn syrup, making management expensive and tedious.

All bees in the world are feared, because all of them sting painfully. There seems to be no difference between the stings of the European and African strains. But while the African bee is more energetic and quick-tempered than most others, it is not as dangerous as some people think. It is gentler than the "Africanized" bee from South America which is threatening American beekeepers.

Differences between the African bee and the European bee (A. mellifera) of interest to beekeepers include the following:

a) The European bee is slightly larger than the tropical honeybee, and therefore hive dimensions for A. m. adansonii are somewhat smaller.

b) The tropical African honeybee colony produces more drones than the European bee colony. Drone cells are usually superimposed on worker cells. They are found side by side and at the base of one or more combs on opposite sides.

c) The European bee can be managed easily. Most African bees are unmanageable. Even the manageable few are not very reliable in this respect and may desert the hive when greatly disturbed.

d) The African bee migrates if meteorological conditions are unfavourable. It absconds when disturbed, a phenomenon which exists to a much lesser extent among European bees.

e) The African bee is aggressive during the hot hours of the day. The warmer the period, the more aggressive it is. In contrast, the European bee ignores the beekeeper during the warm period of the day but stings him when the temperature falls.

f) Very little smoke is required to cool down the Italian or the Carnolian, but the tropical bee needs copious quantities of smoke repeated at short intervals.

g) Several African bees take to the air immediately when their comb is removed from the hive.

h) African bees hate noise. Beekeepers are advised not to talk or make noise when they are visiting them during the daytime. In contrast, the Californian beekeeper, working with European bees, drives his truck to the apiary and uses motorized mowers to cut weeds. The bees never take any notice of the great noise unless the hive is hit by the blade. They are not as sensitive to noise or vibrations in the same way as the tropical bees.

i) The alarm pheromone of the tropical honeybee seems to be more powerful than that of the European bee. When a victim is stung, he is anointed with the pheromone around the spot. If he then refuses to move away, more bees will follow and sting him on the same spot. Within a short period, he will be covered with angry bees.

j) The European bee will not punish the beekeeper who kills a bee near the hive, but dozens of the African bee will chase and sting the culprit, especially when one of them is crushed near the hive.

k) The African bee may chase its victim for more than 200m in an open place. The European bee does so for not more than 50m.

 African bee Honey production

Many people believe that the European bee produces more honey than the tropical honeybee. This point is very controversial. Perhaps such statements are made without taking into consideration the following factors:

a) The European bee is fed with sugar and corn syrup. If this is subtracted from the honey yield, it will be found that the wild, unfed tropical bee is also a good honey producer.

b) There are more flowering plants in the temperate climates than in tropical vegetation zones.

c) Bees near the Equator work for 13 hours a day during the honey-flow season. In the rich honey areas of the temperate zone, where the summer days are longer, the honeybee works for more than 18 hours.

d) The introduction of modern equipment (e.g. the Langstroth hive and the centrifugal honey extractor) in the tropics will make a considerable change. Currently, beekeepers in most African countries crush their honeycombs for honey and wax. The honeybee has to produce new combs for every new crop, and comb-building wastes 8-15 kg of honey for every kg of wax made.

A good colony of bees can produce over 100 kg of honey per year in Africa.

African Bees

Why should Africa keep bees?
Honey is money. Honey is delicious and nutritious. How can man obtain honey to combat malnutrition? The answer is in beekeeping. By keeping bees, he can obtain large quantities of honey and raw beeswax for home consumption and for export. Other benefits of beekeeping are as follows:

1. Tropical apiculture is cheap. It does not involve mass feeding of bees, because the insects can provide their own food all year round, and there is no over-wintering bee management.
2. All the necessary inputs required for beekeeping are available locally. Some may be wasted if bees are not kept, e.g. pollen and nectar from flowering plants.
3. Individuals and private organizations such as churches, women's groups, youth associations and cooperative societies can initiate it with only limited funds.
4. Beekeeping is self-reliant. It does not depend on importation of foreign equipment or inputs.
5. In many rural localities, the technology is available.
6. It improves the ecology. It helps plant reproduction. Bees do not over-graze as other animals do.
7. The honeybee produces honey, beeswax and propolis. These are non-perishable commodities that can be marketed locally or abroad.
8. The honeybee provides pollination service. This is an indispensable activity in the food production process.
9. The honeybee is the only insect that can be transported from crop to crop.
10. Honey and beeswax can be produced in semi-arid areas that are unsuitable for any other agricultural use.
11. The beekeeper does not need to own land in order to keep bees.

How can Africa keep bees?
Since we have seen that bees should be kept in Africa, now we are discussing the different ways how beekeeping can be approached. Of course there are many ways of promoting beekeeping...in Africa.

1. Beekeeping industry in Africa- Uganda in particular has just started holding stands for modernization therefore, churches, agricultural departments and NGOs should come-out strongly and promote beekeeping activities in communities with emphasis on preservation of honeybees, pollination purposes and as a source of income as well as the nutritional value from bees products like honey, propolis and wax.

2. Youth and young people from 12 years should be given the biggest priority in promoting beekeeping activities since there is a big % of unemployment among the youth.

3. Organisation foundations and agricultural departments at all levels should help the beekeepers with securing equipment like extractors, settling tanks and looking for good markets for the bee products such as honey and wax.

4. Western volunteers (from western world with modern beekeeping skills) should come and help beekeepers especially with advanced modern beekeeping skills and services like queening rearing and many others.

5. Cultural constraints like women are not  allowed  to keep bees should be bypassed.

6. Loan schemes should be made available for people willing to invest in beekeeping to buy beekeeping equipment like quality bee-suits, smokers and hives.


Is the African bee worth keeping?

In recent years, however, a number of private enthusiasts have begun working with the tropical honeybee (Apis mellifera adansonii ), better adapted to African ecological conditions. Although this local honeybee does tend to be aggressive, it has the considerable advantage of producing several honey crops a year. It gathers its own food all the time. There is little or no need to feed it.

This contrasts with temperate-zone bees which only work between six and nine months a year. Colonies are then over-wintered (kept out of the cold) and are fed with sugar or corn syrup, making management expensive and tedious.

All bees in the world are feared, because all of them sting painfully. There seems to be no difference between the stings of the European and African strains.

But while the African bee is more energetic and quick-tempered than most others, it is not as dangerous as some people think. It is gentler than the "Africanized" bee from South America which is threatening American beekeepers!!!