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 a large percentage of the area and play an important role in the local economy, with many families still collecting NTFP and some of them practicing shifting cultivation.
Besides these traditional cropping systems and lowland rice cultivation, new form of land use appeared in the last years with large areas of teck, bananas, rubber plantations as well as industrial crops such as Bananas or watermelon, using large mounts of inputs,such as pesticides that may have an impact on the overall biodiversity and precisely on beekeeping.
In this context, the project aims to increase the villagers’ awareness on biodiversity, the methods permitting to protect and manage natural resources. The sub project focuses on the honeybee that is found in surroundings forests and that permits the villagers to collect wild honey. The objective is to support the transition from traditional honey gathering or beekeeping to new beekeeping method based on the Top Bar Hives in order to increase the beekeeping activity, its outputs in term of quantity and quality.
2.1 Chomphet district
The target area of the sub-project in Chomphet district consists of 6 villages: Houaytam, Naxay, Nakham, Houay Mieng, Boumsieng, Nong Chong. When the subproject started in 2012, there were no beekeepers in these villages and 81 families were involved in this new activity which implicated to build hives and to populate them.
In the following years, a majority of hte beneficiaries of the first training stopped beekeeping acivities, mainly because they observed that beekeeping was not only to introduce bees in a hive and to collect honey and that it implicated to acquire new knowledge and know-how. In 2017, only 17 families of these villages were still keeping bees.
Between the 23 and the 25th of march, 8 beekeepers of these villages were interviewed, allowing to assess beekeeping practices and to point out the main difficulties encountered. In the following pages, the main issues will be summarized and possible solutions will be suggested. Finally, the details of the interviews conducted will appear in the annex 1.
2.1.1 TBH used more or less efficiently
The beekeepers are using only Top Bar Hives. In fact, they never used any other type of hives, as previously to the sub-project they were not keeping bees. At first, they were trained to transfer feral colonies in these TBH they built. From the beekeepers interviewed it seems that some of them are still practicing this way. As indicated in 2012, this method of tranfering a feral colony in a TBH should be practiced with caution to ensure that the colonies that have been transferred are not destroyed or weakened, which is often the case if the colony is installed in a narrow cavity in which it is difficult to recover the combs without damaging the brood.
To prevent from this pressure, it is propose to decrease as much as possible the introduction of feral colonies in hive and to favor the natural population of hives with swarms in the forest. In order to enhance the attractiveness of empty hives placed in the forest, the walls of the hive can be rubbed with wax and possibly fragrant plants such as melissa. April 24, 2017 -> Variable dimensions of hives
In most of the villages visited in march and april 2017, it was observed that the dimensions of the TBH build were variable for two main raisons. The first one, is linked to the Sub-project that at first proposed a layout based on a length of 40 cm and a width of 30 cm. Later on, advices on the size of hives have evolved and beekeepers are now being asked to construct 22 * 24 cm hives to take account of the cold months of December and January. The second reason is related to the material available to build these hives.
This is a limit to the development of apiaries. Indeed, the practices of transfer of combs from one hive to another allowing for example the reinforcement of colonies (by addition of brood), division or even rearing of queens is limited.
The standardization of hives should be thought and defined at least at the level of the beekeeper and maybe even at the level of the Sub-projects in order to permit the exchange of hives, colonies between the beekeepers and later on to permit them to be able to adopt advanced beekeeping practices
-> Dimensions of bars
Bars width is also one of the bottleneck that may limit the practice of advanced beekeeping. In most of the villages that were visited, it was observed that the width of the bars were higher than suggested (2,8 cm). The consequences is that often more than one comb hangs on bar, which on one hand does not permit fast checking of the colony and on the other hands does allow to observ all the sides of combs.
Figure 4: Bar wider than natural comb
This point of the bar whidth should be taken as a priority in the sub-project, as this is the main facteur limitant (bottleneck) to the practice of beekeeping with top bar hive. It is therefore necessary to remember to all the beekeepers the correc width of a bar. This information could be transmitted through a short technical document in which would be indicated the different dimensions of hives and bars. The technical team could also take advantage of this tehnical document to explain the utility of a starter (in wood or in was) positionned at the middle of the bar, on which the bees will usually start to build a comb.
2.1.2 Monitoring the colonies
Most of the beekeepers do not visit their colonies, (se contentant) to only control the activity in front of the hive, taking car of predators and waiting for honey combs collection. To become an efficient beekeeper implies to go beyond these activities. It is to monitor the population of adult bees, of brood and to permit their development in order to have an optimum at the time of the honey flow. It means also to take care of the colonies, to prevent them from diseases and predators and to control their stores of food (honey and pollen) are suffisient. Monitoring these parameters implies necessary to visit the colony and to look comb after comb. April 24, 2017 Obviously practices suche as the monitoring of the bees and brood population, the food ressources and storage in the hives should be demonstrated by the technical team. It means that as much as possible the technicians should visit hives with beekeepers giving indications on the method to visit a hive, to hold and scan (observ) a comb, to look for the queen and if possible to memorize (or write) these information, to estimate the amount of pollen and honey stored in the hive and, if necessary, supplementary honey feeding of the colonies, to check the availabilifty of free cells for egg laying...
2.1.3 Protective equipment
Several beekeepers from Chomphet and Nam Bak districts do not have adequate equipment to visit the colonies. Thus, for example, a beekeeper has shown us a veil that has been given to him and which is of a white color, making it impossible to make accurate observations. Another beekeeper said he visited his hives with a motorcycle helmet.
Figure 5: An inappropriate veil for beekeeping
Quality protection equipment is essential to be able to make good observations in hives and to be able to intervene at any time, whatever the level of aggressiveness of the colony. The verification that all beekeepers have the necessary protective equipment to visit a colony (at least a veil and gloves of good quality) and if necessary equip them should be taken as a priority in the sub- project.
2.1.4 Honey harvest
Harvesting time shoud be considered as a crucial step. In case it is umproperly done, it will drive to the absconding of the colony and the harvest of a honey will unsatisfying quality criterias.
-> At harvest time, removing brood ? A part of the beekeepers of Chomphet district are harvesting all the combs, being them capped or not, fill with honey or brood. Taking in account that in the following months the hornets will eat bees and broods, they prefer to harvest and benefite from the total production (honey, wax, pollen, larvae, pupae), even if they have to repopulate the hives after absconding.
April 24, 2017 If possible at harvest time, all the brood should remain in the colony, as well as uncapped combs of honey, permitting to avoid the colony to abscond, and to let honey in uncapped combs to rippen. This method should also permit to harvest a second time in the following weeks. Besides the extension of these more acurate harvesting methods, the technical team should also inform the beekeepers on the possibility to keep a part of the honey collected to feed the colony during the dearth period.
-> Pressing, draining, settling? Once the combs are collected, the honey has to be extracted. Up to now the beekeepers of Chomphet district were pressing honey in a tissue then sieved and bottled it. Most of the time after bottleing, the pollen decants and appears at the top of the bottle. To avoid this problem, the technical team extended another method consisting in cutting the combs and let it drain. This method has the potential to increase the humidity moisture level of honey as firstly honey is an hygroscopic product and secondly, as harvest occurs between april and june, during which the atmosphere is wet. The extraction of honey should be done in a dry area to prevent to increase the moisture level of honey.
Figure 6: Honey press and settling tank
An alternative could be to separate pollen and honey combs, press honey combs, sieved and store honey in settling containers that have to be hermetically sealed. After a settling duration to determinate taking in account the quantity of pollen mixed with honey (# 1 to 2 weeks), the first layer including pollen and impurities is removed and honey can be bottled. This method should permits to avoid i) the pollen to decant at the top of the bottle and ii) to increase humidity of honey (which is a deterioration of honey).
2.1.5 Fighting againt predators A colony is always attracting numerous animal, some of them being only trying to benefite from the stores of pollen and honey (ants, mouse, scarabée ...) but other are behaving as predators (red ants, hornets). The predation exerted by a little yellowhornet is really huge during the months of july, august. To limit the damage of this predators, most of the beekeepers are reducing the entrance to avoid the hornet to penetrate teh colony, otherwise there is a high probability for absconding. Some beekeepers are also hooking a filet (acrochent un filet, permettant de tenir le frelons à distance). Another beekeeper also imagine a longer entrance, permitting the bees to see the hornet from inside the hive, avoiding then to get out and to be caught.
These different methods should be tested and extended to all the beekeepers in order to decrease the pressure exerted by the hornets and to prevent from absconding. It should be also suggested to the techical team to test the feasibility to trap hornets during the period when colonies are weaker (after harvest) and hornets are numerous (july, august). Simple selective traps could be created with used plastic bottle in which an attractive product (to test honey + sugar,
April 24, 2017 beer ...) will be added and a hole permitting little hornet to be trapped, but not the other insects with higher or lower dimension (black hornet).
Figure 7: Example of a homemade hornet (Vespa velutina) trap
2.1.6 Division and queen rearing Three beekeepers explained they tried to divide colonies and one of them succeeded. In other case, it partly failed. From their explanation, it appears that the division was not really prepared, they just removed one half of the comb and introduced them in a new hive without controlling the state of te combs (presence of young larvae, eggs), which can explains the failures.
A training on queen rearing has been facilitated by the team of Dr. Pitchai (Chiang May University). If teh beekeepers understood the overall process, moste of tehm did not understood that the queen has to be removed from the cell builder colony, which tehy cannot do at the moment.
It seems that, up to now, the beekeepers of Chomphet district are not ready to divide colonies and rear queens. There uis up to know a lack of knowledge (cycle of the colony, the worker, the queen) and know how (monitoring the combs, looking for eggs and young larvae, search and locate the queen). These new knowledge and know-how could be extended by the technical team, directly when visiting hives with the beekeepers and also by distributing technical leaflets on the division and queen rearing detailing the steps and mistakes to avoid.
2.2 Nam Bak district
The target area of the sub-project in Nam Bak district consists of 6 villages: Houayhit, Bom, Nala, Phonxay, Li, Khong that were already keeping bees in Log Hives (LH) prior to the support by TABI. Right now 52 families are involved in beekeeping and produced in 2016 nearly 1800 kg of honey mainly sold in the neigbouring markets.
The projecct staff extended the method to build and populate Top Bar Hives (TBH) and besides the 270 LH, there are now 174 TBH.
Between the 21 and 22nd of march 2017, 5 beekeepers were interviewed and a collective assessment of beekeeping practices was carried out, making it possible to highlight the following points.
2.2.1 A situation similar to Chomphet
April 24, 2017 If the number of beneficiaries and the production of honey are higher, similar observations were made regarding the dimensions of hives and bars, the practices of honey harvest and the absence of colony monitoring. On the other side, it was noticeable that different beekeepers were very rigorous in the management of their apiary, keeping hives in good shapes, protecting them from predators. These beekeepers who have a long experience with bees should receive advanced training enabling them to increase their apiary, their production and maybe to start bee strain selection programs.
2.2.2 Advanced training During beekeepers visits organized in march 2017, it was obvious that the practices of populating beehives and harvesting honey have been practiced since several generations. In this context, the support of the sub-project has enabled beekeepers to adopt TBHs and selective harvesting techniques very quickly and to improve the quantity and quality of honey produced. It has also been found that some beekeepers are expressed a strong motivation for beekeeping and are waiting to learn new practices enabling them to become more efficient .
Nevertheless, it should be noted that while queen rearing training has been of interest to beekeepers, most say they are unable to undertake queen rearing at the scale of their apiary.
Figure 8: From egg to emergence, the cycle of a bee
It is probable that advanced training on the division of colonies and queens rearing is quite justified in this context of Nam Bak, but several conditions must be met in order that such training may enable beekeepers to adopt these new practices: 1) Verify that all beekeepers have the necessary protective equipment to visit a colony (at least a veil and gloves of good quality) and if necessary equip them. 2) Organize beforehand training on the prerequisites that are: - the cycle of the colonies, the worker, the queen - observation in the colony of eggs, young larvae and more generally brood - learn to search and locate the queen
From then on a formation on the division of a colony or the breeding of queen must have: i) a theoretical content - which colony to choose to make a division, a rearing of queen - How to orphan a colony to undertake a rearing of queen - which colony to choose for the larvae of future queens - what steps and timetable to undertake a division, a queen farm ii) a practical content: - realization of the division - orphan the breeding colony - manufacture of royal cell - graft larvae - introducing grafted lecells into the breeding colony
April 24, 2017 Following the training, the beekeepers with 'advance knowledge' and ready to divide colonies and rear queens should strongly supported by the technical team in order to: - prepare the process of division and queen rearing - define a calendar for the whole process - exchange on the different steps - realize the division and queen rearing - follow the results
2.2.3 Sales of Honey Honey production being higher, some beekeepers are used to sell a part of their honey in the neigbhoring villages, or even sometimes in Luang Phabang. Taking in account the importance of beekeeping practices in these villages in the Nam Bak district and the presence of beekeepers with an advanced level of practice, it is likely that honey production will increase in the coming years.
It is therefore crucial to support beekeepers more closely in improving honey quality criteria in order to better respond to consumer demands. It would also be wise to support the beekeepers in the search for new markets. It is clear that the Luang Phabang market is an opportunity for the beekeepers of Nam Bak district. Nevertheless, other actors are also positioned in this market, such as Thai beekeepers.
Thus, the study of 25 outlets in the city of Luang Phabang (markets, supermarket and mini-market), 7 proposed honey. In five cases, the honey offered was of Thai origin and in only two cases, it was a honey produced in Laos.
2.2.4 Concentration of hives The total number of colony in the 6 villages concerned by the sub-project is large. According to counts made, there would be 270 LH and 174 TBH. Most of these colonies are placed in the gardens surrounding the houses, directly within the village and sometimes in gardens at a distance from the house. It is questionable whether the hives are not too concentrated in the villages, which can have an impact on the available resources and therefore on the colonies' food supply, on the risk of asconding in case of food shortage and on the quantity of honey that the beekeepers can harvest.
This aspect of the concentration of hives is a point to monitor. Several actions could be undertaken by the technical team: - Simply map apiaries, number of colonies and food resources and areas with a scarcity of food ressources, such as teck plantations under which the soil is nacked. - Measure the quantities of honey obtained in the various apiaries in order to check if there is a correlation between the concentration of the colonies and the quantity of honey produced. - Measure the rates of desertion by apiary during the dearth period to check if there is a correlation between the concentration and the rate of desertion.
2.2.5 The risk of pesticides In the beekeeping environment of the Nam Bak district, many intensive crops are present: - production of bananas, - hevea, - watermelon
For these different intensive crops, there are many inputs and in particular the use of pesticides. Several people interviewed told us that during the first years of implantation of hevea crops, the use of pesticides was important and caused the pollution of the rivers and wetlands leading to the reduction of the populations of insects, birds and aquatic animals.
April 24, 2017 Figure 9: Around Nam Bak many industrial crops such as banana plantation
In the district, there are also maize crops, which may also involve the use of pesticides, such as herbicides to control adventitious plants, fungicides or insecticides to control the many insect pests that attack this crop. It should also be noted that for several years systemic insecticides (neonitotinoid and pyrethroids families) have emerged. Some consider that these new insecticides may partly explain CCD cases in Europe and USA. It should also be noted that in many countries GMO seeds of maize are authorized. Most of the time, these genetically modified plants contain a gene encoding for the production of Bacillus thuringiensis, a bacteria that destroys the larvae of some of the corn's predatots susch as the western corn root worm (Diabrotica virgifera) or the corn borer (Ostrinia nubilalis). Up to now the impact of such BT on bees' larvae and pupae is not well understood and some researchers considered that i t may alos be one of the factors explaining CCD
Regarding these industrial crops, it is suggested: - to better know the cropping systems (corn, watermelon, hevea, banana) it means to have information about the technical itineraries of these crops including inputs used, spraying periods and potential impacts on biodiversity; - to facilitate discussions between the various actors at the district level (villagers, beekeepers, farmers , responsibles for industrial agricultural production units, and of course the authorities) in order to find points of convergence and eventually to change agricultural practices so that, they are more respectful of biodiversity and in particular of beekeeping. Such developments have been observed in the province of Ouomxay where farmers of several villages, where beekeeping is practiced, have stopped the use of pesticides. This is the result of exchange between villagers, beekeepers, farmers and district and provincial authorities (see § 3.3 .....)
In the district of Nam Bak, different beekeepers explained they already used carbamate (Carbamate pesticides affect the nervous system by disrupting an enzyme that regulates acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter) in order to fight against the ants that are parasitizing the colonies. This point has to be taken in account by the technical team in order to find solution avoiding pesticides. It is important to avoid that the usage of pesticides become systematic when practicing beekeeping.
April 24, 2017 PROMOTION OF BEEKEEPING AND HONEY MARKETING IN PEK, PHOUKOUD AND KHOUNE DISTRICTS
Province of Xiengkhouang
April 24, 2017 Promotion of Beekeeping in Pek, Phoukoud and Khoune districts - Executive Summary In the province of Xiengkhouang, the first Sub-Project Agreement was signed in January 2012 and activities were implemented between February and November 2012. An evaluation process was organized at the end of the year 2012, highlighting the achieved outputs and issuing advices for improvements that are summarized in Figure 10.
Figure 10: Objectives, 2012 outputs and advices
In the years that followed, the villages of Phon and Phosi, supported by LFP, were replaced by three other villages where beekeeping has also been practiced for several years. TABI also defined 2 other sectors of intervention in the districts of Phoukoud (4 villages) and most recently in that of Khoune (2 villages).
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 11.
Figure 11: SWOT analysis - Promotion of beekeeping in Pek, Phoukoud and Khoune districts
To take into account this analysis and achieve the expected outputs, different advices are summarized in figure 12.
April 24, 2017 Figure 12: Observations of practices and advices (priorities highlighted in yellow)
April 24, 2017 3. Beekeeping promotion in Pek, Phoukoud and Khoune districts Beekeeping has been practiced for years in the province of Xiengkhouang. In the villages where beekeeping is practices, the technical itineraries are closely linked to season’s cycle. In October, the beekeepers prepare the hives (horizontal or vertical log hives) and place them in the forest between November and March, during swarming periods. Once populated, the hives are moved to the village in order to ensure a minimal protection against predators. Then, before the rainy season, villagers harvest the wax combs containing honey and larvae. This operation causes the departure of bees and the queen. The empty hives will be reused during next season to try to capture new swarms. This technical itinerary allows the production of variable quality honeys in small quantities that are generally self- consumed or sold in local markets.
Given the growing demand for good quality honey coming from the ‘forest’ or ‘wild areas’, the project brought from 2012 new practices to increase the size of apiaries and enhance the quantity and quality of honey produced.
At first, the target area of the sub-project consists of 3 villages of Pek District: Phosy, Phon and Lao in which between 10 and 30 familiers benefited from the project. Later on the villages of Phon and Phosi, supported by LFP, were replaced by three other villages where beekeeping has also been practiced for several years. In addition, TABI defined 2 other sectors of intervention in the districts of Phoukoud (4 villages) and most recently in that of Khoune (2 villages). In 2016, a total of 133 families were involved in beekeeping in these villages and produced around 2.000 kg of honey. 3.1 Objectives and activities The main objectives of the sub-projects in Xiengkhouang are: i) Sustainably increase the income of beekeepers; ii) rise the ability to produce quality honey and iii) increase the number of Top Bar Hives.
The first sub-project started in January 2012. After a meeting setting up the sub-project orientation and a study visit of the beekeepers of the sub-project of Viengxay distric (Huaphan), a group of beekeepers was established (16 beekeepers in Ban Lao, 17 in Ban Phosi and 27 in Ban Phon).
In February, two technicians from Huaphan facilitated a training session in the 3 villages. During four days, the technicians extended the practices of colonies division in a frame hive and queen rearing. Each beekeeper group was supplied with a frame hive populated with the sub-species selected in BDRC (Hanoi - Vietnam), and the equipment permitting to extract honey and rear queen. During the training, the technicians supported the building of frame hive and a honey dryer.
During the next months, the villagers built frame hives and started to transfer colonies from log hive to frame hive. Later on a demonstration of harvesting honey, drying it has been organized in the 3 villages. In 2013, after modifying the target area, the extension team focused on training the beekeepers to build and use Top Bar Hives, to collect, extract and store honey in order to increase the quantity and quality of honey products. The team was also mobilized to allow beekeepers to plant fruit trees and meliferous plants in order to increase food resources. 3.2 Monitoring of the beekeeping activity in the target area Between the 26 and the 30th of march 2017, 8 beekeepers of the targeted villages were interviewed, allowing to assess beekeeping practices and to point out the main difficulties encountered. In the pages that follow the key points will be presented and possible solutions will be suggested. Finally, the details of the interviews conducted will appear in the annex 2.
3.2.1 Dimensions of hives and bars As already observed in Luang Prabang Province, one of the main factors limiting the development of beekeeping in the target villages is the fact that the dimensions of hives (TBH) and bars vary. Beekeepers produce beehives with available pieces of wood and do not try to have standard April 24, 2017 dimensions, which means that within most apiaries there can be hives of varied dimensions. It is therefore not possible to transfer a colony that has already built combs on bars from one hive to another. It is not possible to strengthen a colony by adding a comb of honey or brood from another hive. Finally it is not possible to proceed to a division by inserting combs on bars in a new hive. However, these practices are essential to move to an advanced apiculture level.
Figure 13: Hives with variable dimensions
During the visits of the 3 districts, it was also observed that the bars were often oversized, sometimes reaching 3.5 or 4 cm, whereas on average the space between the combs built by Apis cerana is 2.8 cm. This over-sizing often results in the fact that several combs of waxes can be hung on a bar and sometimes a comb can be hung on different bars. As a result, it is often complicated to visit a colony.
Figure 14: Combs attached on multiple bars (left) and perpendicularly to the bars (right)
It should also be noted that the combs are often constructed perpendicular to the bars. This situation makes it impossible to observe them, monitor the populations of adults bees or brood and cause more tedious work during the harvest because it is necessary to cut and attach the brood combs on new bars to be able to replace them in the hive.
To avoid these situations which prevent the beekeeper from visiting his colony and make the honey harvest more complex, it is suggested : i) to facilitate a discussion about the dimensions of hives. The main objective would be to highlight the fact that only one hive model should be chosen at the level of the apiary in order to be able to transfer a colony or a comb from one hive to the other; ii) to reduce the bar's width to 2.8 cm and to use a starter of wax or wood. This is a piece of wood that will be nailed or of wax stuck to the center of the bar on which the bees will attach the comb.
Figure 15: Examples of starter in wax (up) and wood (down) April 24, 2017 3.2.2 Hives concentration and food ressources In the three districts, beekeeping is a traditional activity and many villagers were already keeping bees in Log Hives prior to the project. The promotion of this activity and the extension of the methods to be more efficient have resulted in a development of this activity and the number of hives in the villages. Thus, in the village of Phosy, Mr. Khambay indicated that there were more than 300 beehives distributed in and around the village.This is a high concentration of beehives, especially considering that bees of the species Apis cerana forage within a radius of 500 to 1000 m around the hive.
In order to limit the risk of food competition, attention must be paid to food resources within this perimeter. It means to monitor flowering periods, to qualify resources (nectar, pollen), and then to define food scarcity periods. Later on, solutions will have to be considered for these periods of scarcity : Supplementary honey-based feedings; Strengthening of food resources by supporting the planting of honey plants adapted to the context of the villages.
Regarding this last point, it should be noted that the project has already provided fruit trees in the target villages of the districts of Phoukoud and Pek, but on the one hand the quantity was of low amplitude (510 fruit trees) and on the other hand, nearly a third of the fruit-trees died.
This activity should be significantly strengthened and extended to the third district, verifying that the fruit trees supplied are adapted to the pedo-climatic context of the target villages
3.2.3 Colony monitoring Similar to what has been observed in Luang Prabang province, beekeepers from the three districts of Pek, Phoukoud and Khoune do not visit their colonies outside the harvest period.
If they monitor the colonies by observing movements at the entrance of the hive and protect their colonies from predators and exposure to climatic hazards (rain, sun, wind, frost), they do not open the colonies to check if the brood and the bees are healthy, being afraid that the colonies abscond.
Figure 16: Colonies seldom monitored
This situation also seems to be identical in the villages of Phosy and Phonsay, where beekeepers have benefited in 2012 from a training course on queen breeding, which theoretically involves being able to know the condition of the brood and being able to observ eggs and young larvae in brood combs.
Given these observations, it seems clear that beekeepers do not yet see the value of carrying out a regular monitoring of the colonies. The extension of methods permitting to visit the colonies should be set as one of the priority actions to be undertaken. This inevitably implies that the technicians support the beekeepers to carry out these visits.
At the same time, it seems essential to organize a training on the biology of the colony in order to explain the cycle of a colony during the year, the reasons for swarming and absconding, and of course the different stages of a bee, from the egg to the foraging stage through the emergence of young bees. April 24, 2017 As long as this knowledge on the biology of the colony and the know-how relating to the inspection of the colonies make it possible to identify the strength of the colony, the importance of the brood, the distinction between the different brood categories (...) are not acquired, it seems fruitless to undertake advanced training such as division of the colony or queen rearing, which besides have already been organized in 2012 in the villages of Phosy and Phon. And however, to date, these techniques are not practiced in either of these villages.
3.2.4 Prevention of absconding The absconding rate in the three districts seems particularly high and appears to be strongly correlated with the level of predation by hornets. It appears that between August and September, this predation is particularly high, probably due to the fact that many villagers raise hornets whose larvae are well valued in local markets.
Once, a beekeeper said that his son was raising hornets and that between december and may, the focus was on beekeeping and that between june and december, hornet activity was a priority.
Limiting the absconding rate means that colonies should be better protected against hornet predation. For this purpose, the current methods should be listed (use of grids or veils againt hornets to prevent them from entering the hive / making a long entrance of the hive allowing the bee to locate the hornet before going out...). This information could be disseminated through leaflets, for example, so that these methods are used more widely.
A discussion could also be held on the subject of mechanical trapping of hornets which is widely practiced in different countries of the world (Europe / Vespa velutina - Lebanon and Iraq / Vespa orientalis).
3.2.5 Honey extraction During the harvest, several beekeepers indicated that they harvested all the combs, whether they contain honey or brood. It seems that the reason for this choice is linked to the high absconding rates observed.
Figure 17: Return the brood to the hive after harvest
In order to limit this absconding rate, in addition to prevention against predators, it is a priority for beekeepers to be aware that during the harvest it is preferable to leave the brood combs in the hive.
Up to now, most of the beekeepers are separating capped and uncapped combs and press them. The honey from capped combs is sold to TABI, and that coming from uncapped combs is own consumed or sold in neighbouring markets.
In order to improve the quality of the honeys obtained it could be envisaged to allow the honey to settle into hermetic settling tanks for one to two weeks before removing the upper layer (with
April 24, 2017 impurities: wax, pollen, wood...) and sieving. This method would in particular remove some of the pollen that often appears at the top of the honey cans.
It could also be propose to collectively establish a payment grid for honeys that would favor honeys with top quality criteria (humidity, crystallization).
3.2.6 Sales of Honey Given that in the coming years it is likely that honey production will increase in the target villages of the three districts, in addition to this effort to improve the quality criteria for honeys, it is also essential to emphasize on the honey market.
While most beekeepers sell their honey to TABI, some said they sold to tourists or buyers from Vietnam. This opportunity represented by the important Vietnamese market should be studied in order to understand how the honey of Lao origin is perceived and to know the conditions of access to this market.
3.2.7 Honey Processing Unit There was a discussion about the project of honey processing unit. 3 layouts have been presented by Mr. Sengphanh.
3 comments have been done : i) The first plan with a dimension of 2,5 * 10 m, is too narrow. It is important to keep space around the equipment (extractor, settling tank) for proper operation. ii) It is necessary to take in account the humidity of the processing unit as it is known that honey is an hygroscopic product. Thus, to prevent from a phenomenon of humidification of honeys, it is suggested either to separate the "washing place" by a waterproof separation, or to add in this extraction room a powerful dehumidifier.
April 24, 2017 iii) It has to be possible to control the temperature of the "storage place" in order to avoid crystallization of honeys during the cold season and the production of HMF during the hot season. It could be envisaged to insulate this part or at least to protect it from the rays of the sun by a tree hedge.
Independently of these technical aspects related to the adaptation of this tool to the specific aspects of beekeeping in Xiengkhouang province, the priority now is to define an economic model for this transformation unit. In particular, it is necessary to calculate the amounts of investments for construction and equipment, their depreciation and operating costs and to verify that these costs are bearable and acceptable to beekeepers.
It is also important to have a clear idea of how such a tool works. Who will be the operator, what will be the procedures for collecting the raw material, what will be the procedure of extraction, sieving, settling, storage, packaging. What will become of the finished products. What will be the profitability of such an installation?
April 24, 2017 4. Promising apicultural projects, to be strengthened
Five years ago, TABI started a project to keep bees in the district of Chomphet were the villagers were only used to gather honey from feral colonies in forested areas. During the following years, the organisation introduced Top Bar Hives in Nam Bak, Pek, Phoukoud and Khoune districts were beekeeping with Log Hive was already practiced for years. Nowadays, in these five districts of Luang Prabang and Xiengkhouang Provinces, beekeeping with Top Bar Hives is practiced by numerous villagers and the production of Honey is not far from 4.000 kg and keeps increasing. This is a promising results.
However, many questions arise. Issues related to advanced colonies management practices about market of honey. Issues related to harvesting techniques and quality of honeys, quality of the environment and of food resources.
In order to answer these questions and prevent them from becoming bottlenecks, it is important that during the following years, the sub-projects find solution to strengthen beekeeping practices to limit absconding, predators and pesticides pressures, to increase honey quality and sale and to initiate a process to define a selection scheme with the objective to obtain lines of local bees that produce honey and do not abscond.
Obtaining these results necessarily implies a great involvement of the sub-projects' technicians who will have to support the beekeepers in learning new skills and know-how. This also implies that these technicians exchange information with their peers on practices and results. Thus, it would be interesting for TABI to encourage technicians to meet regularly and to encourage them to observe actions in other contexts, such as, for instance, what has been done in Oudomxay province in the framework of the Association AESBO (annex 3).
April 24, 2017 ANNEX 1 - Minutes of beekeepers interviews - Province of Luang Prabang March 21 to 22, 2017 - Nam Bak District Participation to the training with Dr. Pichay Kongpitak of Chiang May Unversitya, and two beekeepers of Chiang May: Ms Nualcham Gregory and Mr Manop Srimoon The objective was to meet the trainers and discuss with them on the context they had observed during the 3 first days of the training of which 2 were organized in Chomphet and the next two in Nambak. They explained taht they observed that there were no more eggs and lavae were at a stage that did not permitting to start a rearing process.
From the discussion, it appears that the beekeepers of NamBak and Chomphet are not yet at a level of experience permitting to rear queens. In Nam Bak, most of the hives are logged hives, which limit the possibility to rear queen. The method of transferring logged hive to TBH has been introduce recently, one bekkeeper of Phonsaat as one comingfrom the DAFO and manufacured two TBH. However, the width of the bar was around 4,5 cm, which is not appropriate with Apis cerana (width between 2,6 and 3 cm).
Visit with Mr. Apisit of 2 beekeepers of the group of Ban Phonsay
TBH
They started to manufacture TBH Last year. Previously the technician of the project explained the interests of this hive , but the beekeepers saw it for the first time last year. Mr. Xingdeng as aroud 10 hives, only log hives Mr. Xiengdao as more than 10 hives, of which at least 3 are TBH. He also manufactured around 4 TBH with improper bar width.
Honey harvest April 24, 2017 In may, the comb coming from log hive are harvested and placed in a blue tulle bag permitting to let the honey drain. The bag is hanged in the house and honey fill a plastic drum. During the night the tull bag is covered with a tissu to prevent againt animals and insects. After the tulle bag is pressed and additionnal honey is kept for own consumption.
Following them the moisture level of the honey harvested is between 25 and 28 %.
With the TBH, their process will change as they will be able to control if comb are capped or not and to choose to harvest only capped one. Morevover the colonies will not abscond after harvest, which is the case now.
Experience with a TBH
Mr. Xiengdao has a TBH on two level. The first level is fulled with bee, the second should permit to collect honey, like super in the case of Dadant and Langstroth hives. The bees are in this double hive for the second season. The honey found in the hive envolved 16 % of moisture.
April 24, 2017 Another TBH manufactured by Mr. Xiengdao has improper bar sizes. An observation permitted to see that they were two combs attached to the first bar. Inside this hive, there was unripe honey at 26 % humidity.
Participation to the training with Mr. Pichay in Ban Kong Participated beekeepers from Ban Kong, Ban Li and Ban Houay Hui.
2 hives were visited, the second one had eggs and young larvae and one comb was selected for grafting demonstration. In the hives honey moisture level was 26,5 % in the cell of a new comb and 23 in those of an old comb.
Mr. Xiengwan had extracted 5 days ago one liter of honey whose moiture was 21,5 % April 24, 2017 Sample n°1
The comb chosen contained capped brood + few young larvae + eggs. The brood was showing unsealed pupae that were observed. One varroa mite was visible on a drone larva.
A demonstration was organized to transfer a young larvae on a cell cup. First the group produced cell cups, then the trainers explained and show the transfer process.
Khong Village Mr. XiengVan He had 13 populated hives last year, of which 3 TBH. He has a garden with a multiplicity of fruit plant, vegetables but also forest, he has no idea if the concentration of hives is to high.
->This is a point to monitor.
He produced 35 bottles of honey (660 ml). This year he has 24 hives of which 1 TBH Even if the environment is rather rich, in the vilage there are at least 3 other beekeepers having their bees in the villge, because it is easier to follow them. He is keeping bees for 5 years and work with TABI for 3 years. He sold the honey, easily, between 50.000 and 80.0000 kip per kg and plan to sell it 100.000 kip per kg. The honey is sold to te visitor, direct in the village. other activites :
April 24, 2017 He rent his land for rice production problems : In order to populate his hives, he has to go far, which is a tedious activity. He observed high habsconding level, probably due to the fact that he harvested everything, including larvae. Last year, for the 3 TBH he returned the larvae and the colony did not abscond.
Futur : He wants to keep log hives for swarm catching He wants to increase the number of colonies, using the method of bee rearing. He understand the principles of the method and he has the relevant equipment for this having already 3 populated TBH and 11 others TBH to populate. However, he does not fully understand the method. Today, for the first he learnt about the colony cycle (egg larvae, pupae ...)
-> this point should be taken in account by the project otherwise, the beekeeper may have difficulties to rear queens and even to improve their beekeeping abilities.
Division : he never practiced it as all the hives have different form and dimension. Moreover, up to now he never heard of it. This is a new subject.
-> this is a point to focus on : standardisation of the equipemnt permitting to divide a colony, to transfer a comb from one hive to the other.
Observation of the colonies : He already observed difference of production level. What he noticed is the fact that the colony were producing more honey were also more agressive. Such observation ability is important in a process of selective breeding that will be permitted by queen rearing.
Swarm catching : he is catching swarms where he growes rice because there, there are less predators.
Other problems : He observed that weak colonies die during the cold weather He has important predation by ants and fight against them by spraying a pesticide (carbamate)
-> this point has to be taken in account by the TABI in order to find solution avoiding pesticides. It is important to avoid that the usage of pesticides become systematic
April 24, 2017 Harvest practice Last year, he pressed the combs. This year, he will use the technic of honey draining with a blue tulle tissu. However, up to know he did not know that he had to protect against moisture with a plastic bag. Last week he pressed combs. All of them were note totally capped.
Mr. Maypeh is beekeeper for 3 years. With 2 TBH he produced 12 bottles.
Visit of an apiary The apiary is in a garden with mutiple fruit trees (rambutan, manguo, coffee), near the forest. We open one hive and could observ large stocks of pollen.
Collective assessment of beekeeping practices 3 beekeepers of Ban Li, 2 from Ban Hoauy Huin and 4 from ban Khong
Againt Ants, 4 are using carbamate, 3 use old oil and 2 are burning ants.
Againt the Hornet, this is more difficult to fight. They are not using poison and are not trapping them. They just kill then when they can. -> It could be interesting to facilitate de discussion on this point in order to decrease the pressure of this huge predator.
No observation of any diseases apart from the mite varroa. In the same time, they have, in most of the cases, not the possibility to observe the combs as most of the hives are log hives. One of the beekeeper observed the mite varroa on the thorax of drones.
They think that industrial crops around (bananas, hevea, watermelon) have an impact on the health of the bees, as the DAFO told them, but they never observed any weakening linked to these crops. April 24, 2017 Discussion with Mr. May Li - Ban Houay Hui 10 logged hive, 1 TBH with no bees for 3 years
His main activity is Hevea : he has a plantation with 500 trees and he is hiring himself to work in other plantations. He also grow rice. He stopped livestock 10 years ago, mainly due to the dammage to Hevea.
Last year he had 8 colonies and produced 30 bottles. This year he has 7 colonies.
Harvest He harvests everything and bees abscond. He usew the technique of honey draining with the blue tulle tissu before to store in bottle.
Training on bee rearing He heard of the method. Now with the practice, he knows how to do and would like to practice. If he could explain the overall process, he was unable to explain how to orphan a colony.
-> This is a point to highlight : they probably understand the method but they have not the equipment permitting to rear queens such as TBH, queen excluder
Discussion with Mr. Samchan - Ban Li Last years he had 8 log hives and produced 10 bottles His main activity is rice roduction. This year he produced 6-7 tons of paddy rice. He has 2,5 ha of rice and have employees during transplanting and harvest of rice. He also produces vegetables.
He sells the bottle around 60.000 kip to his family and neigbour.
He wants to build TBH, but he is afraid that bees do not populate them. He understands the advantages of this hive type : possibility to tie the brood, possibility to observe the combs and decide which one to extract.
Up to know after harvest, the bees are absconding as there is no more brood.
Training He understands the overall process and observe that it was necessary to have TBH to rear queen. In order to find the queen, it should be possible even if he never did it.
Predators Againt ants, he uses carbamate
Beekeeping equipment He has no equipment except a pairs of gloves for honey pression. For visiting the colonies, he uses a motorbike cask ! March 23 to 25, 2017 - Chomphet District
5 villages of this district were already visited in 2012.
Naxay Chaleun April 24, 2017 In the Village of Naxay Chaleun, a group apraisal done in 2012 highlighted the following points : Group 11 beekeepers in the group 18 at first. 7 stopped! The head of the village has now 5 empty TBH. The other members have 1. One TBH in the meeting place: the size of the Top Bar varies from 3 to 3,5 cm, which is probably to large for Apis cerana. In Ay Lao booklet, it is indicated 2,8 cm
Motivation: One of the villagers attending the meeting says that he collected honey in the forest. But the quantity is not enough. Last time, he did not collected honey. So he would like to be able to produce in the village to increase the honey available.
None of the member of the group is beekeeper. Only one observed beekeeping in Oudomxai.
Seeds: Seeds of small corn were supplied by the project. In the village there are lot of fruit trees and additional flowers (vegetable)
Training: During phase 1, one training was organized in this village During phase 2, a second training was organized here. The participants say that the trainer is OK.
The 23/3/17 a discussion with Mr. Thonvanh Tchitpavong permitted to understand the following : In this village, only 3 beekeepers are now practicing, himself with 2 TBH and 6 LH, another old beekeeper having only LH and a younger beekeeper having 7 TBH. He explained that the others were not following the indications, so they were unable to keep bees and to populate hive. For instance, one of them cut a tree with a colony inside, bring it back at home where it absconded.
Number of hive and production 6 LH 2 TBH One TBH is actually populated and produced 7 kg 2 years ago, 5 kg last year and is in a good shape this year
Observation of the TBH There is an alternance of bars and pieces of wood. So it seems that the combs are note tied to one bar only, which implicate that it is probably not easy to control the state of the combs, the brood and look after the queen.
April 24, 2017 Honey sale and consumption One kg is for own consumption The rest is sold at a price of 80.000 kip /l
Honey collection He removes all bars except two with brood that are placed back in the hive. Honey is separated from brood. The brood is eaten and the combs of honey are pressed with a white tissue. Up to now, they did not received the blue tulle tissue, but he will use this new technique of honey draining this year.
He collects honey in may. Press it in a bassin, without filtration and leave it for the night, thinking that it will evaporate. He just cover honey with a tissu to protect it againt insects. The day after he bottles the honey.
April 24, 2017 Training on queen rearing He understands the overall process, can even explain the different steps but he never observed the method in a practical way. So he is not completely sure to be able to practice alone. The advantage of the method is to permit to increase the number of hives, like in Thailand where they can have tousands of hives ! (effect of the team of Thailand. that shows beekeeping with Apis mellifera !!!) It means that now, they have to practice and they should be supported for it. Moreover, it is probably important to show them how to find the queen and to orphan the colony as none of the beekeepers met up to now have observe a queen except in the book !
TBH dimension of bars The dimension of the bars are larger that what they should be, some of them are larger than 4 cm. Morevover this beekeeper is adding between bars a stick of wood such as it seems impossible to observ a comb seldom.
Predators Hornest : He kills them Ants : he uses used oil to put on the support of the hive.
Environment Around the village no industrial crop. So it seems that up to now there is no risk of intoxication. However Around the village are observed lots of forest of teck. If these trees are note a threat in terms of pesticides, they are a threat in terms of food providing as, under tecks the soil is naked.
April 24, 2017 Ban Houay Than In 2012, it was observed the following : The village counts 60 families. 14 families are practicing beekeeping – 11 at first. A total of 44 hives were built, of which 17 in phase 1 and 27 in phase 2. 4 hives were populated with feral colonies during the training of phase 1 (February or March)
The project provided: - tools: hammer, saw, nail - 1 veil / beekeeper - 1 water sprayer / group
3 new beekeepers: Reasons to join the group: they already collected honey from the forest They are interested to keep bees because they think that it does not take too much time and it does not cost too much.
Honey from the forest is sold at a good price 50.000 kip/kg in the village
They are interested with this good price and want to produce honey directly in the village.
The beekeepers of the group would like to have at least 3 hives / family They test first and if it works well, they will build more hives during phase 2, they introduced 9 feral colonies in hives, but then the hives absconded. The first training was on beekeeping theory. Then they practiced in the village. In the future they want to have both theory and practice, but they prefer to do, to practice!
Ban Houay Than Interview of Mr. Houmpheng Like in the case of Naxay Chaleun many beekeepers leave the group as Mr. Houmpeng that we interviewed is now the only beekeeper of the village.
Hives He has now 7 TBH in the garden and 13 around. This year only 3 are populated, whereas, last year 10 were. Most of the colonies leave in november december.
-> this point of absconding in nov/Dec has to be monitor. Isn't it a key issue in order to develop the apiaries ? Wouldn't it be only a problem of food scarcity that could be suppressed by colonies feeding ?
M. Houmpheng explained that he observed that there was no food and he give them around 300 g sugar mix with twice the quantity of water, twice. It was is own initative. But before, he didn't know it was possible to feed the bees.
Some of the TBH have bars with a correct dimension. Other have bar of which the width is > 4cm. -> the correct dimension of bars and the standardization of hives are probably one of the urgent action to organize.
Honey He started to keep bees in 2012 and he has the same TBH populated since 2013. In 2016, he collected on this colony 4 kg in april and 3 kg in June The total production in 2016 was 15 kg.
April 24, 2017 Harvest He first observes if cells are sealed and harvest the afternoon. He leaves a part of the honey and brood in the hive. He has several hives with frame. In this cas the harvest is easier as he can collect only a part of the comb. He selects the combs (sealed) and press the honey before bottling it. He sells the honey 60.000 kip per bottle and 35000 kip for one jars (500 ml). The resealer are buying the honey directly in the village.
Queen rearing The TBH that was observed have bars with a correct dimension. The training was interesting and instructive. But they did not practice. He knows to produce a cell cups, but he doesn't know to graft it. It seems he didn't know that the colony should be orphan in order to rear queen. He never had the opportunity to see a queen.
Division The beekeeper explained that he already divided the TBH populated since 2013, leaving 50 % of combs in the former colony that was moved to around 2 km and put the other combs in a new hive that was placed on the place of the former TBH. One week later he brought back the colony.
Practice We proposed him to observe the colony and try to find the queen and show him the method. He accepted. We visited a TBH observing all the combs one by one and one side after the other. We were not able to see the queen, probably hinding in a place were there was no bar but a part of the roof. During the visit we could observe drone and worker brood. In the drone brood a varroa mite was observed.
-> Such visit including the beekeeper and an experienced beekeeper should be favored by the project
April 24, 2017 Ban Na
Mr. Somsi
(Honey sample n°2 - pressed in may, 20 % humidity)
The village integrated the project 3 years ago with 7/8 families at first. Only 2 are now practicing beekeeping He has 2 TBH and 2 LH. Last year only the 2 TBH were populated. This year only one was populated and absconded. The high level of absconding may also in this cas due to a food scarcity.
Up to last year he was using bars. Following the training of the technicians of the DAFO and their advices, he started to use frame. -> This point has to be clarified. Why using frame ? It seems that the reason i that sometimes the combs is attached to the wall of the hive. Wouldn't it be easier to enlarge the hive ?
TBH He knows perfectly the size of a bar and explained how to build a bar permitting to the bees to rise in a second hive on the top of the other (a kind of super).
Harvest Press and after the night he removes impurities and bottles.
Difficulties Predators : hornest (scratch them) and ants (use a tissu with old oil attached to the support of the hive) Absconding. However he remains with motivation as he likes to work with the bees and he observes that the activity can be profitable.
Queen rearing He learned to prepare cell cups, to graft, even if they didn't graft a lot and information on the biology of the colony -> there is a need regarding the biology of the colony (cycle, the casts of broods, the length of the larval and pupal stage ...)
He never observed the queen and he thinks he can manage to see it. -> During the training it is important to favor the practice. After 3 years of beekeeping, the beekeepers of Luang Prabang did not see a queen, which is probably a necessity for every beekeeper that want to increase its activity.
Ban Houay Mieng
April 24, 2017 In 2012, a group interview permitted to obtain the following information: Lots of motivation and determination The villagers refuse the proposal (obligation) to grow rubber Protection of the area and even of bee trees (Apis dorsata Trees – see photo)
Village: 82 families The families grow upland and lowland rice There are numerous fruit trees in the village
Beekeeping: 13 beekeepers 14 hives build in phase 1 13 hives build in phase 2 They attended the first training in phase 1 They had no practical training during phase 2, as they were unable to find bees.
Regulation: The group decided the rules. The villagers agree.
Experience in beekeeping: 2 hives have been populated recently In the introduction of a feral colony, the beekeeper took all the bees. He is unable to recognize the queen. No previous experience in beekeeping, just the experience to collect natural honey from the forest. It is something completely new. Some of them are afraid with the bees.
Motivation for beekeeping: TABI proposed them to support them. Why not! They do not want to spend to much time on this activity Honey collection in the forest is difficult and many people are collecting natural honey. So this is a good idea to produce honey in hives, to facilitate the harvest The objective is that each beekeeper has a colony
Threats: The district proposed to grow rubber trees in the framework of a concession given to a Chinese company. The villagers refused to give the land for a long-term contract. As there was a pressure to accept, they argued that if rubber was grown, they would cut everything!
Opportunity: The participants to the meeting are aware of the quality of their environment. They want to protect it. For instance, 2 trees (May Sapoum and Tone Xieng) with bee colonies (Apis dorsata) are identified and protected. These trees belong to the village. The product from the bees is shared between the inhabitants.
Mr Bouloth and Mr Xieng Si Phong (Honey sample n°3 - collection of pieces of combs sealed 18,5 % moisture and unsealed 20 % moisture) We had a discussion in the apiary with these two beekeepers, the only one that are still keeping bees
April 24, 2017 Mr. Bouloth Mr. Xieng Si Phonh Number of LH 1 0 Number of TBH 8 7 Number of populated TBH 4 3 Nb of TBH harvested 5 5 Quantity 26 cans of 500 ml 35 cans of 500 ml
The honey was sold 45.000 kip to the project This year they had an offer to 50.000 kip after the honey was sold to the project They can sell a 500 ml can to 30.000 kip Sometimes they are selling to Chomphet market at the price of 30.000 kip for 500 ml One of them had a command for 7 cans in Luang Prabang. Besides these local possibilities, vietnamese middlemen for large honey quantity (50 to 100 kg at 50.000 kip per kg)
Environment As indicated in 2012, the quality of the environment is very favourable to beekeeping. The proximity of forest permits the bees to have regular food ressources.
Practices Usually M. Bounloth leaves a space between the bars to avoid that combs be sticked one to the other. Last year he added a hive on the top of the other, transfer a comb full of honey in it, which permitted the bees to build and fill new combs such as both hives were full. On this hive 5 kg of honey were harvested in june. After harvest, the colonies abscond. The explanation he gives is the fact that he collected the totality of honey + larvae. Up to now he always practice this way and did not know it was not suggested.
April 24, 2017 Harvest Both beekeepers are harvesting the totality of honey and brood. They separate capped and uncapped combs In 2016, Mr. Bounloth removed the larvae one by one as they were few. Nearly no brood at the time of harvest ... -> This point is questionning. Isn't there a egg laying blocage due to the absence of available cells for egg laying? In similar case, shouldn't it be suggested to harvest a part of combs earlier, permitting to add free bars on which the worker could build new combs for egg laying ? After harvest, they filter twice. This year they will use the new technique of honey draining, knowing that they have to protect the honey with a plastic bag.
Feeding Mr. Bouloth plans to feed with a syrup 1 kg sugar / 1 l of water during period of food scarcity.
Visit of a TBH A strong TBH was visited First observation : irregularity of bars size varrying from 1 to 4 cm So combs were often hung to several bars which made the visit difficult Most of the combs were full of honey and there were only few brood cells among honey. One comb with brood was stuck to the bottom of the hive it was unstuck and attached to a bar. It was suggested to insert a bar without combs in between this comb of brood and honey to permit the bees to build a comb for egg laying, but it was not possible to do it as the size of bars were irregular. -> such visit in pairs between a beekeeper and a technician should be favored to allow the exchange of information and the technical progress of the two parties
Predators Hornet : They observed a big and black hornet that do not attack bees and a yellow little hornet that is agressive and exert a high pressure on colonies. They smach them one by one. Ants: they think that the ants are not a problem with strong colonies.
Division Last year in june or july, Mr. Bouloth and Mr. Xieng Si Phon practiced a division following the method of Mr. Ay Lao. None of the two colonies absconded.
Moisture The moisture of a sample of honey from capped comb was measured : 18,5 % Uncapped cells : 20 % they never have seen a refractometer.
Ban Nongchong April 24, 2017 In 2012, were observed the following aspects : Large village Motivated group Overall environment favourable but threats due to rubber plantation and chemicals employed
Village: 236 Families / Kmu105, Hmong 86 / Lao 45 50 % of the families are growing upland rice The other are practicing lowland cultivation + small businesses.
Beekeeping: Group of 19 beekeepers 48 hives were built, 29 in phase 1 and 19 in phase 2 5 hives have been populated with feral colonies during phase 1 but bees absconded. 1 hive was populated recently, during phase 2 but the colony was destroyed by ants.
Why are they interested with beekeeping? Value of the bees: Source of food Medicines Some of the beekeepers see a way to change of agricultural system: from upland cultivation to beekeeping (Is it their idea? the willingness of authorities?) Some thinks that the eldest people should keep bees and the youngest should grow rice. They indeed think that it is an easier work than, for instance, upland rice cultivation.
Seeds: Only yellow corn for: i) Bee food ii) Animal food
The objective of beekeeping is to change the work. First, it means to get experience
Group: Objective to provide information to the beekeepers Help beekeepers having problems Define regulation. The group, the village and the PAFO agree with the regulation and the fines. The information regarding the regulation has been transmitted to the village of the district
Some of them have seen beekeepers in Oudomxay.
Threats: Rubber concessions. In the village 300 to 400 ha are part of a concession given by the district (government) to a Chinese company for 50 years with the objective to grow rubber trees One of the problems is the fact that the company uses chemicals coming from China. Following a participant to the meeting, it impacts the biodiversity. The district asked to stop the utilisation of chemicals, but the Chinese company stays on its position, arguing that it has a long-term contract. None of the participant to the meeting has seen the contract. The concession spreads on 4 to 5 villages.
April 24, 2017 Other threats: the Slash and Burn system is still existing in the village and practices by around 50 % of the families.
Introduction of a feral colony in a top bar hive - Difficulty to find the queen. The beekeepers will have to find it next evening - See process on the film - A surgery! - High risk that the colony absconds after the difficult introduction!
In 2017, only few beekeepers have still hives populated. Among them, we had a discussion with Mr. Lè This year, he has only one TBH populated. In another one a colony came and absconded in october or november, leaving empty combs -> Food scarcity ?
Last year he had 5 hives with colonies.
The remaining colony is here since 3 years and he added a second hive on the top of the other.
Division
A technician of Xiengkhouang came to divide colonies and from what he heard, it often did not worked. In the case of Mr. Lè, the division was done with two brood combs in one hive and one in the other. The division did not work. Even After this failure, he wants to continue. He thinks he lacks technique. He is also afraid that his bees will abscond and therefore will not visit the hives.
Harvest the TBH produced 11 kg. The previous year it produced 9 kg. And the previous it did not produce honey as there was the division. As soons as the pollen is red (!) he collects. Following it is capped at this time. The uncapped combs and brood remain in the hive. He presses smoothly to avoid pollen to go through the tissu.
April 24, 2017 Remaining from pression/draining is heated to collect wax. Then he filters twice or three times and bottles immediatly to prevent from moisture. -> It should be checked if after 3 filtration there is no remaining impurities (such as pollen) that will rise in the following days.
The moisture of the Remaining honey of last year was 24 %
Sales He sales 500 ml cans at the price of 50.000 kip to neighbouring peoples.
Division He understands the method but he said : - it is difficult to graft - he has not the proper equipment to graft - he never observed the queen He will probably prefers to rear queen simply by division of a colony and collect royal cells.
Predators Numerous hornets in june july. He scratches them but do not use chemicals.
Environment Around the TBH, following him the environment is OK with different trees (such à Mae Pao) and other that he cannot named but give flowers. The hevea plantation is now giving rubber and there is probably no more pesticides sprayed over them. However, it was observed a decrease of insects and animals in rivers and a decrease o the number of aquatic plants.
Next harvest should be around the 15/4. After the honey is bitter due to a liane species that gives flowers.
We removed the roof of the double body hive and observed that bees were only in the first body and that the disposition of the bars in the second body was perpendicular to those of the first one. It was adviced to modify the second hive in order to have the possibility to hang the bars in the second hive and to transfer one or two bars with combs in this second hive in order to facilitate the bees to come up.
April 24, 2017 ANNEX 2 - Minutes of beekeepers interviews - Xiengkhouang province
Discussion with Mr. Sengphanh and Mr. Malayphet
In Pek District, the project is working with 4 villages Phonsay, Khong, Van Pha and Van Na. On tuesday 3 villages will be visited : Phosy that is not among the beneficiaries villages, Phonsay and Khong. These 4 villages have a beekeeping tradition. TABI is supporting them to start working with Top Bar Hives. There is also a support to plant fruit trees for income and bee food ressources.
In Phoukoud District, TABI is working with Bong, LaeThong, Choy and Hoauthan. Bong and Laethong will be visited the 27/3. These 4 villages have also a beekeeping tradition. TABI is supporting them to start working with Top Bar Hives. There is also a support to plant fruit trees for income and bee food ressources.
In Khoune district, TABI is working with the villages of Nahou and Nabong, that will be visited the 29/3. The support of these villages by TABI is new (2015) and is characterized by a support to use Top Bar Hives. In the village of Nahou, there are coffee plants. It is interesting to have a view about the possibility to produce honey from coffee flower.
Mr. Malayphet is the SPA manager in the 3 districts. There is a technician from DAFO in Khoune and in Phoukoud districts. In each village of the sub-projects, there is between 1 and 2 visits per month in order to work with the group of beekeepers on specific points.
March 27, 2017 - Phoukoud District Ban Bong Mr. Sovanh
In the village, 3 other beekeepers like him with many hives. Other beekeepers have rather 6/7 hives.
Activities
Beekeeping is a complementary activity beside rice production, livestock farming and woodworking. He has now 12 logged hives of which 9 are populated and 20 TBH of which 18 are populated.
April 24, 2017 Early 2017, he sold 16 hives to a mining company of Saysomboun Province.
He builds the TBH himself as he has the equipment for woodwroking. He chooses now to use 3 cm thick wood for the walls of the hive in order to better prevent against cold weather. He also manufactures bars of 3,5 cm width, which is higher than what suggest TABI (2,5 ro 3) be cause he says that otherwise bees are producing combs that are stick one to the other. Howeveer, we observes in hive that : i) it is higher from the spaces of natural swars :
April 24, 2017 Production
He started beekeeping in 2013 and produced a little quantity of honey 3 years ago, 10 kg 2 years ago and 80 kg last year..
He keeps logged hive to catch swarm that he transfer in TBH.
He built a special roof for transfering from LH to TBH April 24, 2017 Sales A part of the production (30-40 kg) is sold to TABI as the Humidity level was below 22 %, at the price of 50.000 kip/kg. The sold is sold to vietnamees at the price of 30 to 40.000 kips/ kg
Harvest He harvests between 1 and 10 of may. He separates white capped honey (recently caps with humidity higher than 20 %), colored capped honey (older so less ripened) and uncapped. The combs are transported to the group of beekeepers for draining during 2 days then pression. The honey is draining in open contener. Moisture is measured After sieving twice, he bottles.
After harvesting the combs, he leaves the brood and honey. He has no absconding on 12 TBH.
Division He already organized division but, it is note well working. He usullay divides colony only if they have more than 6 combs. He says he looks for brood and eggs in all both part of the division.
Difficulties Ants: he used used motor oil Hornets : he reduces the entrance in order to avoid hornets to enter the colonies, otherwise it absconds. Colony death due to cold weather : he built new hives with 3 cm width wood.
Monitoring of the colonies He only follow the colonies from exterior signs. He only opens the hive once every two months because he is afraid of absconding. He knows that some colonies are more prone to abscond than others.
Visit of a hive Dimension : 30*40 * Height 25. It was the size advices by the project at first. Bars 3,5 in order to prevent the combs stick one to the other. We observed together that one bar was supporting two combs, which do not permit a proper visit.
Fruit trees Only 5 trees were given. He would need 20 times more !
Ban Bon - Mr. Bounthan
11 TBH of which 7 with a colony and 2 LH He produced 40 kg sold to the project.
April 24, 2017 We visited a colony : bars + large bars (10 cm large). He uses large bars because he thinks it is better against cold weather
Ban Laethong - Mr. Thongsy 13 logged hives of Which 7 with colony 14 TBH of which 4 with a colony. He produced 32 kg of honey sold to the project as it ws > 21 %
Harvest He harvest near 6 pm. He takes honey and leave the brood. He select only sealed combs, put them in a jar and press it. After measurement of moisture level, he filters twice and bottles. After harvest he often observes absconding.
Division When he sees drones in front of the hive, this is the right time. He divides 50/50 and leave the new hive at the palce of the former one and transport the former one to distance. He practices 4 times and succeed twice
Predators MAny hornets. He protects the colonies, in order to avoid the hornet to enter in the colony, otherwise it absconds.
Other paractices No feeding No monitoring of the stocks of honey
Observation of a TBH He decides to harvest just by the observation of the TBH, when bees stays outside, there is not more palce in the hive, this is the time to harvest. We opten the hives and observed the combs were build perpendiculary to the bars.
April 24, 2017 He decides to extract, remove everything, brood included, except two brood combs that were tie to a bar.
Aspects to memorize : He is efficient in his practice. Just one observation, he left only two broods combs whereas they were around 4 or 5. MAny absconding after harvest
March 28, 2017 - Pek District
Ban Phosi - In the project until 2013 then worked with LFP Mr. Khambay 19 bekeepers in the village, whcih means near 300 hives Mr. Khambay has 30 TBH nd 14 LH Usually he catchs the swarms in the LH and transfer them in TBH He can also catch swarms in TBH in which case he closed he entrance and leave the hole at the middle of the front wall open
April 24, 2017 Dimensions Hive : Dimensions given by TABI : 40 * 30 and now he modified to 35 * 50 cm Bars : 2,5 In fact, we observed that bars are irregular. During the winter, the bee population decrease but he does not put any partition. He just protect them against cold weather, wind.
Predators During the cold season, the hornet arrive (nov/dec). He notices that the TBH are less prone to absconding due to hornet and he thinks that it can be explain by the tickness of the wall. !againt these predators, he protects the hive, gathering them in one place to monitor and ward off hornets. He also reduces the entrance of the hive to avoid the hornet to enter in which case, there will be absconding. By the way he is also raising hornets. He sold the nest à 150.000 kip / kg
Harvest He prefers to harvest in april so that there is a lower rate of absconding as the bees can still find flowers in the environment. In this case he sometimes can also harvest in june. Last year he produced 250 kg of honey with 25 hives. When he harvests, he leave the brood but take all combs of honey sealed or not. He presses all the combs with a tissue and filter immedialtly and store honey in a can sold to LFP. The price is 32.000 kip/kg for all type of honey untill a high level of moisture. His honey was 23 %. Some merchants are buying honey at 35.000 kip/kg.
Absconding Among his 25 hives, 7 absconded (4 TBH and 3 LH) Absconding occurs mainly in august, september and it is linked to the hornet and to food scarcity April 24, 2017 Feeding He never fed the bees up to now but he may try.
Visit of the hive When the population is not important, he visits to check if there is no predators (spiders, blats). He looks 2 to 3 combs but do not control the state of the brood.
Division He divides when there is more than 5 combs, introduce 3 combs in a second hive that is transported at a distance and leave 2 combs in the former hive. He is dividing during the night to avoid the bees to leave the combs and come back to the mother hive. But he prefers to leave the colonies to swarm.
Queen rearing There was a training in 2012. LAter on they did not practice as they have enough colonies
Expert from Vietnam He asked information about the flower in the environmentalHe observed a hive, but it was full of honey so could not visit it. He spoke of different technics that were already presented by TABI. He showed a new technics with frame and wire
Frame hive Mr. Khambay presented the Newton hive that was brought by the NGO Samdara which is working with LFP.
To remember : the apiary is in a good shape This is a vigilant beekeeper Interested to test a new form of hive However, he is mainly keeping bees and do not optimize his apiary. For instance the bars are irregular, which probably do not permit to follow the colony regularly. He is not organizing himself to be a "apicultor" as he is not really trying to rise his apiary through division our queen rearing. He is not use to observ the colonies of bees, monitoring the state of the brood, looking for the queen. He is intersted to feed the bees but never practiced it. Malayphet understands the beekeeper that want to leave the colony to swarm and catch the swarm instead of dividing, rearing queen. This two last implicate technicity and equipment. Mr. Malayphet thinks that it is important to leave colony to manage the problems they have. If Hornest, we just follow the hives, reduce the entrance and colony shoud manage. Food scarcity, the population decrease and manage to survive. -> It would be interesting to communicate on what is a bar, what is the good size, whart the advantage to use a correct bars -> It would be interesting that Mr. Malayphet has a discussion with other bee-extensionists in order to share practices and information about monitoring a colony, divisio, queen rearing.
Ban Phonsay
April 24, 2017 The beekeeper has 24 TBH and 10 LH, all with bees inside. He is a beekeeper for a long time and used to have only LH. He started to use TBH 3 years ago. He prefers the TBH as the harvest is easier, it permits to better protect the bees againt sun and rain, it is easier to clean the hive. The main difficulty is with termites He has some large LH permitting large harvest. The swarms settle directly there, without intervention of the beekeeper
Hives cleaning Explain how he cleans the hives, removing the used rays If the bees build the combs in a wrong direction, he leave them until they are harvested and then reposition them correctly
Dimensions The dimension of bars are between 2,5 and 3 He is not using a starter of wax on the bars. STARTER
April 24, 2017 Production Last year he produced 100 kg with 10 hives The previous year he produced 10 kg with 3 hives
Sales All the honey was sold to the project as the mositure was 21 %
Harvest He follows the method of the project. He collects only sealed combs
Absconding 6 hives among 10 absconded, mainly due to the hornet.
Predators Hornets are a major problem, as much as some villagers are reasing hornets He explains that a well done hive permits to decrease the problems with hornets The beekeeper, made a special entrance to the hive in order to permit the bee to see the hornet from inside the hive
Hives building He build hives himself and use the model of the TABI. He knows that the length of the bars should be the same in order to be able to transfer a bar from a hive to another
Swarming It occurs in november - december
Division He prefers to wait for swarms instad of dividing the colonies. He already practiced the division but it did not work, probably because he did not transport one of the two hive at distance. Communication about the division (objective, method)
Food ressources Lots of flowers in may, june No flower in november, december. Up to now he never fed his colonies supplemental feeding
April 24, 2017 The beekeeper tried to build different tools, one to catch the swarm, another one permitting to mix a LH and a TBH !
Other activities Rice, livestock, piment
Ban Khong Mr. Siengkhamsay He has been keeping bees for a long time. He started to use TBH with TABI, 4 years ago. He has now 13 TBH of which 10 have bees inside and 35 LH of which 13 have bees inside Last year he produced 40 kg of honey.
Dimenion 25 * 30 cm This is the dimension given by the project
He says that at harvest time the combs are tied on the wall (25*30 cm correct dimension ?)
Dimensions of the bars : 2 fingers ! in fact it varries from 3,2 to 4 cm Uncorrect dimension of the bars
Visit He is not visiting the colonies.
April 24, 2017 He just harvest and catch the swarms.
Harvest He harvests between may and June between 10 and 18 h He is collecting everything, even the brood ! collecting brood
Sales He sales the honey to the project and to vietnamees consumers (10 pespy bottle at 45000 kip/bottle). He aslo sold 2 TBH (250000 kip) and 7 LH (200000) to the mining company of Sysomboun
Absconding It occurs in august/september, mainly due to hornet, not due to food ressources
Food ressources During auguts and september there is no flower But he dose not feed the bees
Predators There is a huge pressure of hornet, however, he does not protect colonies againts it. In fact his son his reasing hornets ! The son is reasing hornet between june and december Mr. Siengkhamsay is reasing bees from november to may
Swarming When he observs a swarms, he kills the queen in the swarm so the bees are coming back.
To remember : Even if he has TBH, he keeps the same practices as with LH, do not visit colonies, do not protect them, do not retunr the brood after harvest. He is not taking care of his apiary that is not in a good shape.
communicate on what is beekeeping
March 29, 2017 - Khoune District
Ban Nabong - 17 beekeepers Ban Nahou - 30 beekeepers.
April 24, 2017 Training have been organized by Mr. Malyphet on the follwoing subjects : Build a TBH Swarm catching Looking for the queen Division Harvest
TABI distributed : 5 TBH per village the first year and 15 TBH per village the third year . Protective clothes Gloves Harvest cans
Ban Nabong Mr. DuangChoy
He is the vice-presient of the beekeepers group Mr. Mi was also present, he is a member of the group
Mr. Duanchoy is a beekeeper since the age of 19. He is now 55. He started to use TBH, 3 years ago. He has now 7 LH and 10 TBH Last year he produced only 16 kg of honey as many hives die due to the cold weather. He also harvested 80 kg of Honey from Apis dorsata. He shows us combs of honey coming from the forest, that was in the fridge. The moisture was 21 %.
April 24, 2017 Mr Mi started beekeeping last year. He has now 6 TBH but did not extracted honey last year. He harvested 20 kg of honey from Apis dorsata.
Sales : Mr. Duangchoy sold his honey (from AC) to TABI at the price of 45.000 kip / kg as the moisture was <= 21 % Both beekeepers sold their AD honey at the price of 50.000 kip, which is easy to sold. The buyers thinks this honey has medicinal properties. Up to now, for them, they have no solution to sell AC honey despite TABI. Wax is sold to Vietnamees buyers at the price of 50.000 kip.
Harvest They cut the combs Leave the brood Separate sealed honey -> TABI and unsealed honey -> own consumption Honey is pressed and filtered and packages in cans.
Absconding 3/10 TBH absconded at the end of september/october because of a lack of flower and ressources for bees.
Swarming It occurs in nov/dec. So he places LH in the forest and around his house to collect swarms. In january, they collect colonies in he soil and transfer them in TBH. Leave the TBH during 3 days on the original place and bring it back home.
Feeding He is not feeding his colonies. However, in september-october, he notices there is no food ressources for the bees. He may feed in the future, above all if TABI support them to do it.
Predators Hornets are present but their pressure is not high. He just redce the entrance of the hive to prevent the hornest to enter, otherwise, the colony absconds. Their presence is higher in may and june.
Other problem The colony are suffering of the cold weather. In 2015/6, 7 among 10 colonies died. In 2016/7, 2 colonies died. In fact, the weaker colonies are concerned. To prevent agiant the cold time, he put blanket on the hives.
Dimension The hive given by the project has the following dimension 22 * 24 * (H) 24. H built with higher dimension (height) The bars should be between 2,6 and 3 cm.
Equipement TABI gave a veil but in fact he is using the quipement he has for Apis dorsata
April 24, 2017 Visits He visits hives 2 to 3 times a month. He checks the combs is lying down; If this is the case, he add a second hive under the former. He is not checking the brood and never observed the queen.
Division He never practices it
General observation His garden is nice, with many plants among them coffee.
He is taking care of the hives : there is a shelter to protect them against sun and rain. There is a carton around a hive to protect it againt the low morning temperatures. A willing to understand, to go further with technics of beekeeping.
We observed a neighbouring apiary with the hive of the project on 2 levels (2 hives, one on the other). Different other hives in this apiary. One of them with a lower dimension (#20*20). In fact, based on the available wood. The bars have a dimension of 3 cm. The apiary is also very nice with fruit trees, shelter.
At 9 km, ban Keosseine were there is lots of coffee tree. The café from Xiengkhoug would have a similar quality as cafe from Bollovens, so the production is increasing.
April 24, 2017 Ban Nahou Mr. Khamtong
In fact the village is ban Kwa. where the project started befor moving to ban Nahou He has been keeping in LH for a long time and started to build and use TBH three years ago. He has now 15 TBH and 20 LH Of which 5 and 13 have bees inside. He is producing coffee, having trees in the garden he already harvested twice, sell the cherry the first year and tried to prepare them the second year but he could not sell them. Before he already had coffee for the leaves that are eaten with lap.
Honey production Last year he produced 120 kg of honey with 20 hives (4 TBH and 16 LH)
Absconding Before harvest 3 LH absconded. He thinks this is due to a late harvest. He observs higher rate of absconding in july-August, due to the presence of hornets
Predators The hornets are a problem in july august. He try to decrease the pressure of the hornet by a reduction of the entrance and a "filet" to prevent the hornet to enter the colony. However, he observs that when hornets are around the hives, bees do ot get out and later on when hornets leave the hives, the bees abscond. In the Village, 5 personns are reasing hornets
Sales All the honey is sold to TABI . The honey having a moisture between 18 and 22 %. He brought a sample of honey was moisture leve is 22 % -Sample n°6 check the presence of coffee and litchee pollen
April 24, 2017 ANNEX 3 - Minutes of interviews with extensionists of AESBO - Oudomxay province April 3 and 4, 2017 - Oudomxay
Meeting with the staff of AESBO Association for Sustainble Beekeeping Oudomxay
Mrs. Chamsouk Douangvialy, Coordinator And the team of 7 extensionists
The different key issues highlighted during the monitoring mission in Luang Prabang and Xiengkhouang provinces were discussed with the team.
April 24, 2017 Moisture It doesn't seem to be a problem in Oudomxay. According to the interlocutors, if the collection of combs of honey is done at the right time then, the humidity of atmosphere will not be too high and will not damage honey. There is no process to decrease the moisture level of honey. Usually honey is collected in april, when humidity is not high and june.
Crystallization Like in Xiengkhouang, they observe that honey crystallize and the consumers think that it is adulterated honey
Harvest The comb are collected in april and june and capped and uncapped are separated. Usually, they let the combs draining, for the night, without protection againt humidity. As soon as the draining process ends, they close the can.
Market A part of the honey is bought by the association at the price of 50.000 kip/kg. For the last 4/5 years, there was no market problems. There is even a lack of honey. All the production of honey is sold localy. There is no need, up to now, to sell in LPG or VTE.
Dimensions The size of the hives are variables, depending on the available materials. Most of the bars are at the width of 2,8 cm. This is the job of the technicians to remember to the villagers.
Problems The main problem is Hornets. Usually the beekeepers are scratching the hornets they saw. No other method. Regarding the ants, this is not really a problem. They observe from time to time a brood disease but are not able to identify it. They will, in the future, take photos, in order to exchange information. They know the mite varroa but are not afraid by this mite which is not as serious as for Apis mellifera. The pesticides are a problem. They already observed intoxicated bees and a decrease of the amount of colonies. They train beekeepers on the effects of pesticides, so that they do not use them in their fields. This information is also transmitted to the administration, particularly through the annual meeting of the association to which participate PAFO and DAFO.
Monitoring of the colonies. It is important to follow them regularly, and not only for harvest. It permits to know if the queen lays eggs, if she is weak, if the brood is OK, if there is a signs of disease, if there is enough stocks of honey and pollen ...
Division and Queen rearing Theyre are not practising neither of these technics. In fact, they explain that the beekeepers have other acitvities besides beekeeping and so they do no take time to practice these sophisticated technics. Moreover, they explain that if they divide a colony, it will produce less honey.
Visit the apiary of Mr. Ay Lao
April 24, 2017 Mr Aylao has 50 hives (TBH) of which 20 have bees. Two colonies where visited. In the second one, a comb was broken and was tied to a bar. Mr. Ay Lao tied the comb with a cotton twine.
The honey in sealed cells was near 18 % humidity. Sample of honey n° 7 was bought.
Visit of the apiary of Mr. MayPhou Mr. Mayphouh has 80 TBH of which more than 40 are populated. He also considers that there are no problems to visit a colony The hives are around a little lake.
He had an absconding in the previous days, because of ants. However, the colony went in another empty hive of the apiary.
In one of the hives, there are stingless bees. Usually he just gives the honey to the family. April 24, 2017 The previous honey from stingless bees collected already fermentated. His moisture level was 28 %
One a colony has 2 parts, like a super
Sample of honey n° 8 was bought
Training on nutrition Ms. Phetmany
The training was organized by the assocaition with Ms Phetmany who has a master on the subject of nutrition and who is based in Vientiane. The objective was to make a presentation of the nutritive aspects and the importance for the mother and the children. The beneficaries are the staff members of the asociation (technicians and employees) and the objective is to disseminate this valluable information.
April 24, 2017