Chief dies after being stung by wild bees
Sunday, 28 April 2013 00:00
Chief Chiweshe and spirit medium Katombo Kanyai display the Zimbabwe bird which landed at the spirit medium’s homestead
Nomore Kudzedzereka
Chief Chiweshe Joseph Chigariro of Chiweshe, Mazowe District, has died. Mr Chigariro (82) died last Thursday after he was attacked by a swarm of wild bees at his home in Chiweshe.
Zimbabwe Chiefs’ Council president Chief Fortune Charumbira confirmed the death yesterday.
“I can confirm the sad departure of one of our fellow chiefs whom I have been told was attacked by stray wild bees,” he said.
According to Chief Charumbira, Mr Chagariro, who was an experienced bee-keeper himself, was resting outside his house on Thursday afternoon.
He was alone at home at the time.
A swarm of bees suddenly swooped on the homestead and attacked him. Neighbours only rushed to the scene an hour later. The neighbours subsequently ferried him to Concession District Hospital where he died.
It later turned out that the bees also killed one of the chief’s dogs and attacked poultry.
Chief Charumbira said the realm leader will be buried on May 8.
He said Chief Chiweshe was a key member of the Chiefs’ Council of Zimbabwe who also played an active role throughout the land reform programme.
“He was one of our strongest members in the Council of Chiefs. He had a great passion for the country and wanted to see the preservation of our culture and traditions.
“The colonialists had parcelled out land among themselves because Mazowe comprises rich agricultural land. However, Chief Chiweshe made sure these land imbalances were corrected.
“He stood firm to ensure our identity and heritage as blacks were well-protected. That ranks him among the greatest chiefs of our era.”
Concession District Hospital authorities could not be reached for comment yesterday, but Harare General Hospital clinical director Mr George Vera said an individual could succumb to a bee sting if his or her body reacts.
He said victims could survive if treated early.
“There are two ways in which one can die from a bee attack. An individual can die even if he or she is attacked by a single bee if that person is allergic to bee stings,” he said.
“Then there are times when the body becomes overwhelmed by multiple bee stings, resulting in the inflammation of the skin.”
Labels: BEES, CHIEFS, LAND REFORM
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Bee farming takes root in Copperbelt rural
...as Bee Sweet Scheme set to distribute 3,000 hives
By GETHSEMANE MWIZABI
“BEE farming is a good source of income. It has helped me buy fertiliser,” says Getrude Toto, of Mandala Village in Mpongwe District.
Mrs Toto started bee farming last year in December and so far she has had one harvest and is excitedly looking forward to the next season so that she gets more money to support her four school-going children.
Many villagers are beginning to appreciate bee farming as a socio-economic activity and this is so real in Copperbelt rural where more than 600 bee farmers have been empowered with free beehives and swarm-boxes under a beekeeping scheme called Bee Sweet.
The scheme covers four rural districts namely Luanshya, Masaiti, Mpongwe and Ndola and the purpose is to empower small-scale farmers in rural areas so that they can raise their socio-economic status.
“I am happy, I don’t have to work so hard to make money,” said Mrs Toto who is a proud owner of three beehives and several swarm-boxes.
Her responsibility is to clean up the area where the hives are placed once in a while.
Honey is harvested two times a year. The more beehives a farmer has, the more the honey and the more income.
After farmers harvest the honey, they sell it per kilogramme to the Bee Sweet scheme.
Workers from the scheme go round villages buying honey produced from the beehives they provided to villagers.
Historically, bark hiving is the traditional technique that has been used to harvest honey in Zambia. The villagers harvest the honey in trees that the bees have naturally formed into hives.
The trees are usually destroyed in the process.
This has proved unsustainable for the forests and results in inconsistent harvests for the villagers.
The scheme has however introduced the environmental friendly, beehives that have a life span of more than 20 years. They are made of timber and are a first of their kind in Zambia.
“It depends on how you use them. You don’t have to cut trees all the time to have honey. We are cautious about climate change,’’ said Bee Sweet project coordinator Horst Wendorf.
Mr Wendorf is an expert in bee farming who has worked in several countries training villagers.
Bee farming has a great future in Zambia due to the great potential in the Miombo woodlands. It protects the woodlands because the beekeepers and the bees rely on the trees (where the nectar is coming from) and would protect them from being chopped down.
The demand for natural honey without contamination by pesticides or other chemicals is ever increasing worldwide while the bees in developed countries are steadily decreasing and disappearing because of environmental problems and new occurring diseases and symptoms like CCD (Colony Collapse Disorder).
In Zambia at present, there are feral (untamed) bee swarms roaming in the Miombo woodlands in their natural habitat.
“I believe there are enough bees around to produce tonnes of honey,” Mr Wendorf said.
However, queen rearing and queen breeding techniques which are common and practiced in all developed countries would be options for the future to further enhance genetic material and expansion of honey production.
As for the rural farmers on the Copperbelt, they would soon realise an income for themselves.
With new ways of bee farming being introduced, villagers are being discouraged to use bark hives, which contribute to deforestation.
Through a grant from the German government that was given to the project recently, the process of creating a substantial honey business is under way.
“We are targeting the European Union (EU) and American market,” he said.
The grant has funded the creation and building of 3,000 state of the art swarm boxes and hives. These hives are being constructed in the woodworking factory at Kafakumba.
This has provided dozens of jobs necessary to build these hives and swarm boxes. The hives are being distributed to families in the most outlying parts of the country.
Some of the families are suffering from extreme poverty hence the bee farming scheme could improve their socio-economic status.
Apart from providing villagers with bee hive and swam boxes, the villagers are also trained on how to manage and harvest honey.
It goes without saying the business is sustainable and provides a solid economic reason for the villagers to preserve the natural forests.
“I am happy I am able to have money through this project. It’s a decent business venture,” said Luckson Phiri, a father of eight children and four grandchildren.
He is among the beneficiaries with five beehives and several swarm boxes spread around his land.
Last November, he harvested 20kg of honey and he hopes to double the kilograms in the next harvesting season.
“I need more bee hives to generate more income. There is so much I can do and realise out of this business,” Mr Phiri of Luanguni Village in Mpongwe.
Beekeeping is an ideal small-scale income generating activity, as there is a ready market for honey, wax and other bee products both locally and abroad.
It is a sustainable activity as it requires little cost inputs and little space. It can be practised on small farms, as bees do not compete with livestock for space or food.
Unlike agriculture, beekeeping does not require good soil. It can be practicsd on poor soils and in remote areas.
Further, it has positive ecological consequences, as bees play a vital role in pollination of many flowering plants and crops, thus increasing the yield of major food crops such as beans, melons, sunflower and various fruits.
Swarm boxes are needed for catching swarms. They are usually suspended in the trees at a height between 3-5 metres and baited inside with bees wax. Bees would then occupy the box at a time, particularly during the swarming period and in the rainy season. After the bees have started drawing out combs and the queen has started laying eggs, the swarm-box would be transferred together with bees into the new hive.
So far, more than 1,000 beehives have been distributed to small-scale farmers across the Copperbelt region.
“We work with village beekeepers in the tropics to increase their income and small- scale producers,” said BeeKeeping Coordinator Edwin Lunda.
After the honey is collected from farmers, it is then refined at Kafakumba in the Baluba area of Ndola where it is processed and packaged in readiness for the market.
Ultimately, many villagers in Copperbelt rural are realising the value of bee farming.
The Bee Sweet scheme is adding value to the lives of villagers most of whom have had socio-economic struggles.
With this robust project on course, things are changing for the better.
Labels: BEES, COPPERBELT PROVINCE, HONEY
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Beekeeping can contribute to poverty alleviation
By Shingai Jena
THE emphasis on minerals as the key to economic growth appears to be taking away the focus of planners and investors from opportunities that other natural resources in the country can contribute to poverty alleviation.
While an attempt is being made to improve livelihoods of rural communities through the Communal Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resources, its bias on wild life, particularly elephants, is also relegating the impact that other natural resources can make in poverty alleviation.
With the advent of agrarian reforms, emphasis has again been on land tillage and not exploitation of other natural resources.
Since independence, Zimbabwe has been striving to reduce poverty among the previously marginalised black majority so that it can live up to its former status of being the "land of milk and honey".
This has, however, proved to be a tall order as wealth disparities have continued to dog the nation despite the vast natural resources that the country has, which are the envy of many.
Many foreigners who have visited the country have fallen in love with Zimbabwe.
While it might be true that at one time the country was a land of milk and honey, today there is nothing to prove it, as the national herd has dwindled and the trees where bees made honey have either fallen to the axe or gone up in flames.
Folklore has it that African men used to woo women with honey which they collected from hills near the villages where they lived.
In those days, being able to collect honey was a sign of brevity and innovation as it required great skill since one risked getting a swollen face from bee stings.
Honey was known to have a unique way of winning hearts of women as it "sweetened" the tongue, whatever that meant.
Today, in addition to being a tongue sweetener, honey has the potential to change the lives of rural communities through practising modern methods of keeping bees, harvesting, processing and marketing.
The idea of beekeeping as a means of alleviating poverty was conceived as way back as 1992 when the country was implementing the Economic Structural Adjustment Programme when Zimbabwe was hit by drought.
In order to overcome effects of the devastating drought, some concerned individuals who included Women’s Affairs, Gender and Community Development Minister Olivia Muchena founded the Zimbabwe Farmers Development Trust with the view to identify low cost projects of alleviating poverty and agreed on beekeeping.
ZDFT executive director, Tichasiyana Mapondera, said beekeeping was agreed on because of its minimum funding requirements since it uses readily available natural resources such as land, trees and the bees.
At inception, the project targeted small-scale farmers as well as rural communities in and around the Hurungwe district of Mashonaland West province as a pilot project.
To date it has been launched in more than 25 districts in the country.
However, withdrawal of support by the W.K. Kellogg foundation which provided funding for producing modern beekeeping materials has hampered progress as plans were underway to spread the project to other parts of the country.
"We urgently need a US$100 000 cash injection to facilitate further training programmes and remuneration of staff who train and manufacture beekeeping equipment," said Mapondera.
The funding required is small compared to the profits that farmers generate per year from honey production.
With raw honey going for up to US$2 per kilogramme, a small-scale farmer with an average of 100 modern Kenyan top bar hives which produce at least 30 kilogrammes each of raw honey and are harvested four times a year, earns at least US$6 000 per quarter.
In Buhera, there are more than 300 communal farmers involved in beekeeping who, when harvests are good, produce up to 1, 2 tonnes per quarter, which translates into a gross total of income of US$1 million a year.
With such impressive figures, words such as destitute and unemployed would cease to exist in the Zimbabwean vocubulary.
Taking into consideration that workers in the country are earning on average US$150 per month, rural folk would not find any reason to envy their relatives in urban areas who toil the whole month to get paid.
Besides the economic benefits it would bring to individual farmers, beekeeping would also benefit the pharmaceutical industry as honey is a key raw material in the manufacture cough medicines while other companies use it to cosmetics including soap and hair products. While legendary boxer Muhammad Ali described himself as someone who "flew like a butterfly and stung like a bee," Zimbabwe can regain its status as the "land of milk and honey" through exploiting the insect that stings to operate income-generating projects and eliminate poverty. — New Ziana.
Labels: BEES, HONEY
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Honeybees: the new canary in the coal mine?
What Was Behind the Honey Bee Wipeout?
by Gina Covina
If we listed beehive collapses of the last 20 years, this winter's would not make the top five. The world's honeybee population had already declined by half in 30 years. Previously, winter losses of 5%-10% of a beekeeper's colonies were the norm.
Then mites jumped from other species to honeybees. First tracheal mites in the '80s, then varroa mites, which carry 25 different viruses, in the '90s. The mites increased yearly losses to 25% by the late '80s and now 40% or higher.
For tracheal mites, beekeepers developed nontoxic preventive treatments. In the mid-'90s, American beekeepers began using chemicals in beehives. European keepers, who have had the varroa mite longer, use Integrated Pest Management.
Another challenge is a fungus, nosema, that's tolerated by healthy bees but not weakened ones. Add in hive beetles, an African native recently found in Florida. Aggressive African honeybees attack the beetle, but European bees, bred to be docile, let it overrun the hive.
Cell phone interference has been proposed since in the presence of high-frequency electromagnetic radiation, tested bees were unable to find their way home. However, no bee taken from its hive for the first time, as was done in the study, could have. Bees navigate primarily by landmarks; their first few excursions are short orientation flights.
Thirty years ago growers relied on native insects and local honeybees for most crops. Now apples and blueberries rely on relocated honeybees for 90% of their pollination, peaches 50%, and oranges 30%. Farmers won't bother planting squash or melons if they can't get beehives in place by bloom time. One third of all US crops depend on honeybees.
It takes most of this country's commercially operated pollination colonies to cover California's almond monoculture -- over 800,000 Central Valley acres, mile after mile of bare soil and almond trees, that support no life but the target crop. It's not just almonds; most crops are grown on factory farms.
Being pollinators for industrial-scale agriculture for much of the year, when bees are out foraging they are likely to ingest a monocultured diet -- nothing but almond, then nothing but apple, then only watermelon.
While the bees roll down the highways or wait in yards, they're fed a high fructose corn syrup with soy protein -- not any more nutritious for bees than for humans. And genetically modified corn and soy contain bacterial insecticide. Are bees not insects? While Bt corn pollen does not kill healthy bees or brood reared on it, Bt pollen reduces the number of bees in hives already weakened by varroa mites.
The country's best bee forage habitat was the Midwest. There marginal areas were left to asters and goldenrods that are high-quality pollen sources in late summer when bees need to raise the generation that will overwinter. Now even the edges grow GM corn as a source for ethanol.
Bees are exposed to pesticides used on their forage crops as well. And very hot weather, more usual as climate changes, can damage the protein content of pollen, decreasing its food value for bees.
The difference with this winter's losses is not having a definite cause. Malnutrition might be the culprit. The only beekeepers doing substantially better are the very small percentage practicing non-chemical mite control coupled with little or no trucking or artificial feeding.
http://ww.alternet.org/environment/65289/?comments=view&cID=750502&pID=750427
JJS: Way before factory farming, before the Industrial Revolution, in English law (and American), farmers enjoyed environmental rights. If your neighbor’s fire burned your field, if his dam flooded your garden, he owed you compensation. The court ruling which created limited liability for corporations changed all that (why corporations in the UK are called “limiteds”; they’re called “corporations” because they originally were public “bodies”). As more of us see Earth as commons, we’ll reform liability limits to end corporate license and require perpetrators to bear the burden of proof -- want to alter nature? prove it’s safe. Then our world becomes much healthier for humans and our bee buddies, too.
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Jeffery J. Smith runs the Forum on Geonomics.
Labels: BEES, GMO
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