Current status and possibilities for improvement of traditional apiculture in sub-Saharan Africa

R T Wilson

Bartridge House, Umberleigh, Devon EX37 9AS, UK
TrevorBart@aol.com

Abstract

World demand for honey and other hive products is in excess of marketed production. Hive products have a wide variety of uses and applications but a few only of these are fully exploited. Honey production in Africa is estimated to be less than 10 per cent of world production and Africa beeswax is less than a quarter of world production. Traditional production systems in Africa are of the hunter gatherer type or farming using fixed bar hives. There is some move to improved systems using top bar hives but the use of modern movable frame hives is very limited.

Encouragement of apiculture and increases in the output of hive products would be in accordance with the agricultural sector policies of most African governments as these often seek the improvement of household food security concurrently with raising incomes and stabilizing cash flows. More modern methods of production would contribute to environmental protection and sustainable agriculture through a reduction of the environmental effects from tree felling for traditional bee hive construction and from fire hazard from smoking beehives with inappropriate equipment. There are many opportunities for increasing the output of hive products and improving production efficiency. In opposition to the opportunities there are many technical, financial and administrative constraints. Improvement pathways for African apiculture should aim in the first instance at intermediate technology and not at too sophisticated "solutions" with their attendant problems. The use of intermediate steps to improvement can still greatly increase output over traditional systems and also be financially beneficial as input costs remain relatively low. Most African hive products are consumed or used within the household but there is a broad range of marketing opportunities for honey and other hive products. In particular African honey can supply niche markets such as for organic products and further value can be added through sale of minor products such as propolis, royal jelly, pollen, venom and queens.

Key words: Added value, Africa, Apis mellifera, Government policies, honey bees, improvement pathways, intermediate technology, marketing, traditional production

Introduction

Protein-energy malnutrition, vitamin A deficiency, iodine deficiency disorders and nutritional anaemias are the common nutritional problems in the developing world (Latham 1997). Honey could provide a cheap and readily available source of energy and honey and other hive products could assist in generating additional income that could be used to contribute to alleviating these problems as well as improving household food security and livelihoods. A cameo from Somalia helps to set the scene and highlight the possibilities of adding value to bee keeping and increased output of hive products:

"Honey production was not a big traditional economic activity in Somaliland. Some pastoral people harvest honey and would either consume, give out or sell the product away. Today, honey has a big market in urban areas and pastoralists are aware of the fact. There is a trend now for some pastoralists catching bee queens and selling them to urban people who produce honey. Many pastoralists are becoming very much aware of the domestication of the beehives and its commercial use as an alternative income. Some of the favourite plants species known for honey making are in danger of getting extinct like the Dibow, which gives a distinct taste and logging down forests for charcoal and fencing are also endangering the survival of bee colonies. In agro-pastoral areas, the case is different. Some families have started to harvest honey and sell it in urban areas. However, the amount is not sufficient for consumption and the price is very high. At the time of writing this report, a kilogram of honey cost around 40,000 Somaliland shillings, equivalent to 8 US dollars. Honey is often in high demand because people value it for medicinal purposes." (Sadia et al 2001).

Honey is the main product in quantitative and financial terms of traditional bee keeping activities. The general definition of honey is that it "is the natural sweet substance produced by honeybees from the nectar of blossoms or from the secretion of living parts of plants or excretions of plant sucking insects on the living parts of plants, which honey bees collect, transform and combine with specific substances of their own, store and leave in the honey comb to mature" (Codex Alimentarius 1989). Sugars account for 95-99 per cent of honey dry matter and 85-95 per cent of these are the simple sugars fructose and glucose (Krell 1996). Water is the second most important constituent but must be less than 18 per cent of the whole if honey is to be stored without risk of fermentation. Minerals are present in very small quantities as are nitrogenous compounds amongst which are the enzymes that originate from the saliva of the worker bees. Honey was the only source of concentrated sugar available to people for thousands of years. It is now considered that honey facilitates better physical performance, reduces fatigue, promotes higher mental efficiency, improves food assimilation, is useful for chronic and infective intestinal problems and acts as a remedy for colds and mouth, throat and bronchial irritations. Honey is used in moisturizing and nourishing cosmetic creams and in pharmaceutical preparations that are applied directly to open wounds, sores, ulcers and burns as well as being useful for assisting tissue (re)generation and reduction of scars due to various types of wounds.

World and African production of main hive products

World production of honey during the 1990s was in excess of 1.2 million metric tonnes (MT) per year. Beeswax production was more than 50 000 MT per year. World demand for these products is substantially in excess of these amounts and is likely to increase even further. FAO Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations) data indicate that world trade in honey during the 1990s amounted to more than 300 000 metric tonnes (MT) per annum with Western Europe and the United States in particular being major importers at an average price of about US$ 1500/MT. World trade in beeswax amounted to about 10 000 MT per annum of which Western Europe accounted for about one half of total imports with the world price averaging about US$ 4000/MT.

In 2004 estimated world production of honey was higher than the medium term average at 1.38 million MT. Beeswax production was also higher at 60 153 MT (FAOSTAT data 2005). In comparison to these amounts, production in subSaharan Africa (Africa south of the Sahara but excluding the Republic of South Africa) was 135 375 MT of honey and 14 165 MT of beeswax, most of which came from a very few countries (Table 1).

African production represents only 9.8 per cent of the world production of honey and 23.5 per cent of beeswax. Exports of honey from subSaharan Africa countries -- some of which was intraAfrican trade -- in 2004 were 184 metric tonnes (MT) valued at US$ 469 000 whereas in the same year there were imports of 874 MT valued at US$ 2 708 000. Exports of beeswax from subSaharan Africa in 2004 were 721 metric tonnes (MT) valued at US$ 465 000 but in the same year there were imports of 255 MT valued at US$ 224 000 (FAOSTATdata 2005). These amounts of exports and imports are minimal in world trade figures. They show, however, that African honey is sold on the world market at a price of US$ 2549/MT whereas imports are valued at US$ 3098/MT and beeswax is sold at US$ 645/MT and bought at US$ 878/MT. There thus seem to be considerable opportunities not only for increasing the quantity of Africa's major hive products but also for improving their quality.

Production systems

Private sector modern production with many movable frame hives and inputs such as winter or out of season feeding and use of disease prevention measures is largely unknown in subSaharan Africa except in the Republic of South Africa and (until about the year 2000) Zimbabwe. The use of hives with removable top bars has been promoted intermittently and often in a not very coordinated way in some countries by government extension services. "Modern" production has already been promoted by externally funded development projects with perhaps more enthusiasm than by government agencies. In general in the latter case, however, there has generally been little continuity after cessation of project funding and the termination of the project cycle. Almost all African honey and beeswax is therefore produced "traditionally" which is almost synonymous with inefficiently.

Much of African honey production is gathered rather than farmed. Hunters search out nests of truly wild bees in holes in trees or in burrows in the ground. In this task they are often helped by honey-loving birds (Honey Guides) of the genus Indicator: these birds do not of course do this for altruistic reasons as they are always given a portion of the honey and wax by the hunter. Slightly more advanced is the system of fixed bar hives. These are of many types and are made from a wide variety of materials. They often show considerable ingenuity, adaptation and imagination and include hollow logs (often suspended in trees, Figure 1), rolled strips of bark, clay pots and rush baskets.

The problem with all these traditional hives is that they engender low output; in Ethiopia, for example, there were an estimated 4.55 million hives in 2005 (CSA 2006) which, based on FAO data for national production, is equivalent to 8.58 kg honey and 0.95 kg wax per hive per year, although better beekeepers using log hives can achieve 15 kg per hive per year in more favourable areas. In addition to low yield traditional hives often have to be destroyed in the process of extraction. A further drawback of traditional honey production is that the African strains of the honey bee Apis mellifera tend to be fiercer than European strains and often respond to smoke by becoming even more aggressive. Fires that are destructive of the environment may therefore have to be set to drive the bees away.

Policy framework

Encouragement of apiculture and increases in the output of hive products would be in accordance with the agricultural sector policies of most African governments. These often seek the improvement of household food security concurrently with raising incomes and stabilizing cash flows through improving the productivity of various agricultural and diversified agricultural activities. Apiculture in general and improved apiculture in particular contribute to environmental protection and sustainable agriculture through a reduction of the environmental effects from tree felling for traditional bee hive construction and from fire hazard from smoking beehives with inappropriate equipment. Bees are known to improve, and are seen by many policy makers as improvers of, agricultural crop yields through their pollination of fruit trees and crops: in Africa crop yields can be increased by more than a third in the presence as opposed to the absence of bees. Bees are also regarded in policy documents as important contributors to the maintenance and enhancement of ecosystem biodiversity. It is considered by many (Bradbear et al 2006, Morse and Calderone 1991; Roubik 1995; 2002) that the largely unquantifiable economic benefits from increased crop yields and maintenance of biodiversity should be valued at many times the value of the physical outputs.

Encouragement of apiculture also addresses broader policy issues that many governments deem to be of major importance. In particular it contributes to increasing offtake from small scale areas, intensifying production, increasing exports, providing credit, providing specialized training and carrying out marketing closer to the areas of primary production. Beekeeping could potentially have major effects on gender equality and empowerment of often-marginalized groups of the population. In Nigeria, for example, the majority of bee keepers in Kaduna State in the north of the country are men but women are active in the processing and marketing of honey (Fadare 2003). This but one example of the way the role and therefore the status and financial position of women could almost certainly be improved.

Opportunities and constraints

There are many opportunities for development of African bees and hive products. These are to:

• increase the use of improved hives and appropriate bee handling equipment;

•  rehabilitate existing or introduce new bee research and demonstration centres;

• carry out research on the threat of Varroa mite infestation and Cape bee invasion;

• introduce selection programmes for docility and productivity of bee strains and subsequently produce and distribute queens to beekeepers and community beekeeper groups;

• provide training in the management of hives to farmers, farmer groups and extension workers;

• make credit available to individuals and community groups for start up; and

• begin processing of honey by community beekeeper groups.

In an apparent paradox, the increasing demand in the developed-world for "organic" products could provide short to medium term opportunities for honey from the developing world which is, in fact, still largely free of harmful residues. Much of Africa has an extremely diverse botanical resource that flowers over different seasons and provides an almost ideal environment for bees. Encouragement of beekeeping and of honey production provides the opportunity for poorer households and those with little or no land to diversify production away from direct agriculture, reduce the losses associated with poor or failed crop production and increase the household income flow.

Increases in the output of hive products in Africa are restrained by many technical, financial and administrative constraints. In particular improvements in African apiculture are limited by:

• inadequacy of traditional hives which also endanger the environment by the destruction of slow growing indigenous trees used to make log or bark hives;

• diseases and parasites and especially the spread of Varroa destructor mite and invasion (especially in southern Africa) of the very aggressive Cape bees;

• inadequacy of protection equipment and improper bee smoking practices which endanger the environment through fire hazard;

• high aggressiveness and low productivity of most strains of local bees;

• inadequate extension services;

• non availability of credit or expensive credit for start up;

• poor honey processing and downstream factors affecting the potential increase of honey consumption in the formal market; and

• lack of coordination among the institutional bodies concerned with the various aspects of honey production, processing, trading and consumption.

Whilst not of major importance at the present time possible future problems include a probable increase in and unregulated use of pesticides on crop plants. "Non-tariff" barriers to trade, which are likely to include uncertainty about the pesticide status particularly of honey, are also likely to become a problem. The European Union (EU), for example, now requires that imported honey be certified free from chemical, antibiotic and other residues and that it has a full nutritional analysis. In the not too distant future the EU may also insist on "traceability" even down to the hive from which the honey has come. In only a very few countries in Africa has there been very much extension and training effort (Clauss and Clauss 1991; MoA 1997)

Improvement pathways

There are several possible approaches to improvement of African traditional apiculture. Whichever approach is adopted it would need to be holistic and preferably integrated with other rural activities. It should not, however, be highly sophisticated and demanding of advanced technology in the early stages. The use of movable frame hives, for example, might not be advantageous in the early stages because of the requirements for prepared hive construction components and the precision needed in construction. Instead an intermediate hive of the top bar type (Figure 2) might be a more appropriate early stage intervention.

Often known as the Kenya Top Bar Hive in Africa - because it was first introduced there in the 1960s - such hives,`of which there are several variations (Aidoo 1999; Sakho 1999; Magnum 2001), have many of the advantages of movable frame hives but have a lower capital cost and minimal recurrent costs.

A suggested series of activities in support of improvement of apiculture might be:

• develop new or rehabilitate infrastructure including bee development centres and extension centres;

• carry out a programme of genetic improve for more docile bees and superior queens and make these available to producers and potential producers;

• promote participation of individuals and households and especially women in beekeeping by creation of awareness of the benefits of beekeeping through more focussed extension programmes with improved delivery;

• train extension staff in modern methods of beekeeping and honey production and in participatory methods of technology transfer;

• train farmers in modern methods of beekeeping, honey extraction and processing and marketing;

• organize wherever feasible beekeepers and honey producers in groups and associations in order to strengthen their position vis à vis the market and to provide assistance in marketing;

• train local small scale tradesmen to construct modern yet simple hives of the top bar type to promote their self sufficiency and to make available these hives for purchase by prospective bee keepers; and

• assist individual beekeepers and producer groups and associations to obtain or gain access to credit for purchase of bees and equipment.

Extension and training activities should be carried out by Departments of Agricultural Technical and Extension Services and by Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) in the initial stages of development. As farmers become more proficient and as producer and marketing groups develop private advisory services provided on a payment basis for services rendered should take over from the public and charitable service providers. Payment for services is increasingly in line with the agricultural policies of many governments. Also in line with government policies is the provision of credit at market -- as opposed tp subsidized -- rates. In effect, if an enterprise is not viable and profitable in the marketplace it should not be practised. This does not mean that all credit would have to be obtained through commercial banks but could also be obtained through dedicated funds (as the Agricultural Development Assistance Fund (ADAF) in Zimbabwe) and at devolved levels by NGOs. Where credit is supplied from whatever source it should take the form of a revolving fund in that repayments go back into the system and not into some vaguely identified central government account.

Quantitative and financial gains

Physical models (Table 2) and gross margin analysis (Table 3) show that intermediate technology honey production can be very profitable due to low input costs and potentially high output returns.