Beekeeping in Laos
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BEEKEEPING IN LAOS BEE RAISING SUB PROJECTS MONITORING March 20 to april 4 2017 Final Report Jérôme Vandame [email protected] April 2017 April 24, 2017 Content 1. BACKGROUND................................................................................................................................. 4 Executive Summary - Promotion of Beekeeping in Chomphet and Nam Bak districts (LPG).......6 2. Promotion of Beekeeping in Chomphet and Nam Bak districts................................................... 11 2.1 Chomphet district.......................................................................................................................... 11 2.1.1 TBH used more or less efficiently......................................................................................... 11 2.1.2 Monitoring the colonies......................................................................................................... 12 2.1.3 Protective equipment............................................................................................................. 13 2.1.4 Honey harvest........................................................................................................................ 14 2.1.5 Fighting againt predators....................................................................................................... 15 2.1.6 Division and queen rearing.................................................................................................... 16 2.2 Nam Bak district........................................................................................................................... 16 2.2.1 A situation similar to Chomphet............................................................................................ 16 2.2.2 Advanced training.................................................................................................................. 17 2.2.3 Sales of Honey....................................................................................................................... 18 2.2.4 Concentration of hives........................................................................................................... 18 2.2.5 The risk of pesticides............................................................................................................. 18 Promotion of Beekeeping in Pek, Phoukoud and Khoune districts - Executive Summary...........23 3. Beekeeping promotion in Pek, Phoukoud and Khoune districts.................................................. 25 3.1 Objectives and activities............................................................................................................... 25 3.2 Monitoring of the beekeeping activity in the target area.............................................................. 25 3.2.1 Dimensions of hives and bars................................................................................................ 25 3.2.2 Hives concentration and food ressources............................................................................... 28 3.2.3 Colony monitoring................................................................................................................. 28 3.2.4 Prevention of absconding....................................................................................................... 29 3.2.5 Honey extraction.................................................................................................................... 29 3.2.6 Sales of Honey ...................................................................................................................... 30 April 24, 2017 3.2.7 Honey Processing Unit.......................................................................................................... 30 4. Promising apicultural projects, to be strengthened ...................................................................... 33 ANNEX 1 - Minutes of beekeepers interviews - Province of Luang Prabang................................. 34 March 21 to 22, 2017 - Nam Bak District......................................................................................... 34 March 23 to 25, 2017 - Chomphet District........................................................................................ 41 ANNEX 2 - Minutes of beekeepers interviews - Xiengkhouang province....................................... 55 March 27, 2017 - Phoukoud District................................................................................................. 55 March 28, 2017 - Pek District............................................................................................................ 62 March 29, 2017 - Khoune District..................................................................................................... 69 ANNEX 3 - Minutes of interviews with extensionists of AESBO - Oudomxay province...............74 April 3 and 4, 2017 - Oudomxay....................................................................................................... 74 April 24, 2017 1. BACKGROUND Due to a fovourable agro-ecological context, honeybees are numerous in Laos. Besides the giant bee Apis dorsata which build a single comb hung on the branches of trees such as “May Sapoum” or on steep cliffs, and the dwarf bee Apis florea colonizing shrubs, the species Apis cerana is present in all provinces of Laos. These three species give place to the picking of the honey that generally involves the destruction of the colonies. In some place, farmers are trying to keep bees in traditional hives made up of hollow tree trunks, sealed at the two ends and populated with colonies of Apis cerana bees. However these beekeeping practices are rare, empirical and lead to the production of small amounts of fragile and variable honeys. Aware of this situation and of the advantage that can represent beekeeping to protect and promote agricultural biodiversity in Laos, TABI supports since 2011 different sub-projects aimed either to strengthen beekeeping in areas where it is traditionally practiced or to encourage villagers to move from wild honey gathering to beekeeping. In December 2012, an evaluation process permitted to evaluate and verify the results obtained by the 3 sub-projects in Peak District (Xiengkhuang Province), ViengXay district (Huaphane Province) and Chomphet district (Luang Prabang Province) and to seek advice on how to improve the results and conduct the sub-projects. Later on the sub-projects where extended to many more villages of Phoukoud, Pek and Khoune districts (Xieng Khouang Province) and Nam Bak district (Luang Prabang Province). New subProjects are now under way in Houaphane and Phongsali Significant quantities of honey have been produced and marketed in Province of origin, with XKH honeys also sent to mini-marts in Vientiane. Following this experience, TABI organized a short term conultancy between the 20th of march 2017 and the 4thof april 2017 in order to: • understand the reasons for project success and failures that have been recorded, • measure several quality criterias of the honeys collected and to identify solutions permitting to improve these quality criteria (moisture, cristallization), • compare the chosen methods and actions and results obtained with those of neighboring projects. In the next pages, the visited sub-projects will be described. The results will be presented taking into account the objectives set initially. Moreover, these visits will allow to issue a technical opinion and suggestion for improvement. All over this process of projects monitoring, a particular attention will be paid to the following points: - Quality of the honey obtained. A specific assessment of beekeeping methods, harvesting and packaging techniques will be made with a focus on their impact on the moisture content and on relevant practices to improve this parameter. - Comparison of quality criteria of honeys obtained in Laos with those of international standards and in particular those of European honeys (specified in Council Directive 2001/110/EC). April 24, 2017 PROMOTION OF BEEKEEPING IN CHOMPHET AND NAM BAK DISTRICTS Province of Luang Prabang April 24, 2017 Executive Summary - Promotion of Beekeeping in Chomphet and Nam Bak districts (LPG) A first sub-project to promote of beekeeping activities was implemented in 2012 in the district of Chomphet. The evaluation process organised at the end of the year 2012 permitted to highlight the achieved outputs and to issue advices for improvements that are summarized in Figure 1. Figure 1: Objectives, 2012 outputs and advices Later on the sub-project extended in 6 villages of the district of Nam Bak, that were already practicing beekeeping with log hives. Focused on technical beekeeping aspects and on quality criterias of the honeys collected, the mission of march 2017 permitted to perform a SWOT analysis resumed in figure 2. Figure 2: SWOT - Promotion of Beekeeping in Chomphet district To take into account this analysis and achieve the expected outputs, different advices are summarized in Figure 3. April 24, 2017 Figure 3: Observations of practices and advices (priorities highlighted in yellow) April 24, 2017 2. Promotion of Beekeeping in Chomphet and Nam Bak districts Located in Luang Prabang Province, Chomphet and Nam Bak districts are on the north bank of the Mekong river. Due to the proximity of Luang Prabang, the villagers of the target area have an easy access to the provincial capital markets. Even if land use were largely modified in the last decade, the forests are still occupying