Rubber, surgical-type, gloves are an excellent option. They make you clumsy (which can hurt the bees) and you can’t feel what you are doing. We suggest to avoid the heavy, leather gauntlets that you find at many beekeeping suppliers. Invest in a good quality one and you will enjoy many happy hours of sting-free beekeeping. You can also wear a beekeeping suit or jacket (or perhaps just a veil). If you treat them with thought, care and respect they will work happily with you. You can minimise the chances of getting stung by working gently with your bees. It is more often because you do something that might hurt or threaten them. This is not because bees are aggressive (which they shouldn’t be). The extra time demanded for management and manipulation - in the context of a small-holder farm in Uganda - does not pay off.If you are going to keep bees you will, at some point, get stung. Beekeepers are reporting that the increased yield is not enough to compensate for this extra labour, hence the low take up by beekeepers of these hives. If a beekeeper works hard to exploit the possibilities created by movable comb technology – this will require a greater time commitment than a local style hive system. One advantage is a potential yield increase, one disadvantage is that it is time consuming. However, management and manipulation of colonies brings advantages and disadvantages. Movable comb hives are considered “improved” because they allow colony management and manipulation. Beekeepers using local style hives are following nature-based systems with little or no colony management and manipulation. This is because the type of hive determines the whole approach to beekeeping. At first glance one may assume that owning many hives increases the time needed to manage them all, and harvest honey, but the analysis does not bear this out. Owning many cheap hives may be an effective way to produce a significant yield of honey, however the labour implications of the different systems must be considered. The low cost of the hives is the overriding factor here. The calculation using a UGX 1 million investment shows that fixed comb hives will give the best return on a financial investment. To be productive a frame hive needs frequent inspection and management - unlike the local style hive which is left alone much of the time. Why? The answer lies in the type of beekeeping practised. According to beekeepers, the local style beekeeping system is far less time consuming than the frame hive system. Figure 2 shows that beekeepers estimated that they spent UGX 13,117 worth of their own time, per local style hive, compared to UGX 91,700 for a frame hive. In the SNV study, beekeepers were asked the costs of their own labour for the different beekeeping systems. The question “is it worth the time?” is an essential consideration. One might assume that owning, managing and harvesting honey from more hives would place an unacceptable labour burden on the beekeeper. In the analysis of the UGX 1 million investment, the local style (fixed comb hive) beekeeper earns more than the frame hive beekeeper in income – however the local-style beekeeper has many more hives. This is important because clearly it makes more sense to spend their labour time on those activities which yield the greatest returns. Farmers need to consider how much they are earning from each day of their own labour.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |