Heightening Local Interest in Beekeeping

Bees play an essential role in food security and crop yields, as apart from being great pollinators of fruits and seed crops, they provide high-quality food.

While the most well-known of such bee-produced food is honey, there is also royal jelly, pollen and beeswax. Other bee-related products include propolis and honeybee venom.

Beekeeping also provides a critical source of income for many persons and can be a very lucrative venture, particularly through the sale of honey.

Honey has many uses, which include but are not limited to its use as a natural sweetener, as an anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, antibacterial agent, and a home remedy for coughs.

Chief Plant Protection Officer, Apiculture Unit, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Mining, Hugh Smith, tells JIS News that many Jamaicans are showing an interest in being a part of the buzzing community of beekeepers and establishing their own apiaries.

“We have [expressions of] interest every month. We have at least 30 persons who come to training to be beekeepers. Outside of that, we have other interest groups… many groups have been applying for training for beekeeping, because they want to go into the industry,” he shares.

Mr. Smith says the high interest is a positive sign that the apiculture industry is heading in the right direction.

For persons still exploring the idea of becoming beekeepers, he shares a breakdown of the various segments of the sector.

“You have the service side of the industry, producing equipment, procurement and distribution of certain inputs and you have the beekeeper. You have the guys who take the honey from the farmer, the value-added trade, the middleman – the distributor [and] he makes quite a nice profit from the industry. So we have the support from different areas,” Mr. Smith discloses.

He says the industry has seen substantial growth over the years, noting that extension officers have contributed significantly to that growth.

“We have been able to move the industry to over 100,000 colonies of bees right now… and we are coming from 2015 when there were 15,000 colonies of bees. so we are moving the industry up in terms of numbers.

“Our extension staff is there. They have been working overtime because of the limited numbers to get this going. What we’re looking at is protecting the bees, making sure the industry remains viable and, at the end of the day, promoting pollination and protecting the pollinators. Food security is still our objective,” he discloses.

Mr. Smith says he is pleased with the industry’s steady growth, but concedes that more work needs to be done in other areas.

“Where we need more support is with the issue of climate change and how we protect our bees from the impact; so that’s where we have to focus right now. But I want to say that without the staff of the unit – the extension officers, the senior officers – this would not have been possible. So I say well done to all of these persons and all the farmers who have made this possible. This is really what we want to see in the industry – growth. Even though there are constraints, we want to see growth and development,” Mr. Smith tells JIS News.

Other factors that negatively impact the bee population and other pollinator insects which are vital to crop production include pests, use of pesticides and other non-sustainable agricultural practices, pollution and loss of habitat.

Pollinator insects such as bees, wasps, beetles, flies, ants and butterflies play an important role in agriculture.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), close to 75 per cent of the world’s crops, producing fruits and seeds for human consumption, depend, at least in part, on pollinators for sustained production, yield and quality.

Therefore, safeguarding bees and other pollinators by maintaining their habitats and committing to utilising more sustainable agricultural practices, including the use of indigenous and local knowledge and avoidance of pesticides, is key to protecting these species.

The three main programmes of the Apiculture Unit are regulatory apiculture-prevention, control and monitoring of bee pests to include control on importation; apiculture research – conducting meaningful research to enable the advancement of the industry; and beekeeping extension, which involves the provision and delivery of efficient and effective support services in the industry to ensure sustainability and improvement in the livelihood of those involved.

The Unit has been responsible for spearheading various programmes and projects related to the industry.

It operates under the Plant Protection Unit of the Ministry, with research and regulatory activities being done at the Bodles Research Station and extension work off-station.

These areas were merged to create one unit in 2001, arising from the closure of the Beekeeping Development Project.

The Apiculture Unit continues to pursue its mandate of spearheading the development of the beekeeping industry in Jamaica.

For further details on the Ministry’s Apiculture Unit, persons may call 876-983-2266-7; 876-983-2842-3 or email apiculture@moa.gov.jm.